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NIV.OF 

TORONTO 
LIBRARY 


MODERN    LANGUAGE   NOTES 


EDITED  BY 


EDWARD  ^C.  ARMSTRONG        JAMES  W.  BRIGHT        HERMANN  COLLITZ 
C.  CARROLL  HARDEN,  MANAGING  EDITOR 


VOLUME   XXVI 

,      U        \S    i 

1911  .  M     ,     ,  ,    '/ 


BALTIMORE 
THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  PRESS 


H4 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


ORIGINAL  ARTICLES. 

Matzke,  John   E. ,  The  Legend  of  the  Eaten 

Heart 1-8 

Moore,    Samuel,    A    Further    Note    on    the 

Suitors  in  the  Parliament  of  Fowls 8-12 

Brooke,  C.  F.  Tucker,  The  Allegory  in  Lyly's 

Endimion 12-15 

Brown,  Carleton,  The   Cursor  Mundi  and  the 

"Southern  Passion." 15-18 

Emerson,  Oliver  Farrar,  A  New  Chaucer  Item.         19-21 

Young,  Karl,  A  Liturgical  Play  of  Joseph  and 

his  Brethren 33-37 

Hill,  Baymond  T.,  Two  Old  French  Lyrics 

hitherto  Unpublished 37-39 

Watson,  Foster,  Dr.  Joseph  Webbe  and  Lan- 
guage Teaching  (1622) 40-46 

Andrews,  A.  LeRoy,  Old  Norse  Notes 46-50 

Strunk,  W.,  Jr.,  Textual  Notes  on  the  ME. 

Genesis  and  Exodus...., 50-52 

Bruce,  J.  D.,  Some  Proper  Names  in  Laya- 
inon's  Brut  not  Represented  in  Wace  or 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth... 65-69 

Voss,   Ernst,    A  Summary  of    the  Protestant 

Faith  in  Middle  Low  German 70-73 

Patterson,  Shirley  Gale,  A  Note  on  a  Borrowing 

from  Chretien  de  Troyes 73-74 

Hammond,   Eleanor  Prescott,    A  Reproof  to 

Lydgate 74-76 

Foster,  C.  H.,  A  Note  on  Chaucer's  Pronun- 
ciation of  at,  at/,  el,  ey 76-77 

Gay,  Lucy  M.,  Notes  on  De  Boer's  Edition  of 

Philomena 77-78 

Hemingway,  Samuel  B.,  The  Relation  of  A 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream  to  Romeo  and 
Juliet 78-80 

Phillipson,  Paul  H.,  The  Direction  of  Thought 

in  the  Wartburglieder  of  1817 81-83 

Pietsch,  K.,  Zur  Spanischen  Grammatik 97-104 

Forsythe,  R.  S. ,  Certain  Sources  of  Sir  John 

Oldcastle 104-107 

Ibershoff,  C.  H.,  A  German  Translation  of  Pas- 
sages in  Thomson's  Seasons 107-109 

Emerson,  Oliver  Farrar,  The  Suitors  in  the 

Parlement  of  Fouks  again 109-111 

Jackson,   George   Pullen,   Traces  of   Gleim's 

Grenadierlieder  in  1809 112-113 

ii 


Shearin,  Hubert  G.,  The  Glove  and  the  Lions 

in  Kentucky  Folk-song 113-114 

-  Gerould,  Gordon  Hall,  The  Transmission  and 

Date  of  Genesis  B 129-133 

Kurrelmeyer,    W.,    Die    Doppeldrucke     von 

Goethes  Werken,  1806-1808 133-137 

Wilkins,  E.  H.,  The  Sonnet  "Dante  Alighieri 

Son  ...  " 137-139 

Wells,  John  Edwin,  Spelling  in  The  Owl  and 

The  Nightingale 139-141 

Klaeber,  Fr.,  Old  Saxon  Karm  and  Hrom  : 

Genesis  254,  Heliand  2459 141-143 

Coleman,  A.,  Influence  of  English  Literature 

on  Flaubert  before  1851 143-146 

Law,  Robert  Adger,  Two  Parallels  to  Greene 

and  Lodge's  Looking-Glass 146-148 

Hanford,  James  Holly,  The  Debate  of  Heart 

and  Eye 161-165 

>Wood,  Francis  A.,  Etymological  Notes 166-167 

Kittredge,  G.  L.,  The  Ballad  of  The  Den  of 

Lions 167-169 

Foster,  Francis  A. ,  The  Mystery  Plays  and  the 

Northern  Passion 169-171 

Baker,   George    M.,    An    Echo    of    Schiller's 

Eduber  in  England 171-172 

Moore,  Samuel,  The  Date  of  Chaucer's  Mar- 
riage Group 172-174 

Hollander,  Lee  M.,   Zu    Einigen    Stellen    in 

Goethes  Egmont 174-176 

Richards,  Alfred  E.,  Dr.  Johnson  and  H.  P. 

Sturz 176-177 

Livingston,  A.  A.,  Pseudonyms  of  the  Nobles 

of  the  Broglio  in  Venetian  Popular  Poetry    201-208 

Brown,  Carleton,  Another  Contemporary  Allu- 
sion in  Chaucer's  Troilus 208-211 

Klaeber,  Fr.,  Jottings  on  the  Hildebrandslitd...     211-212 

Adams,  Jr.,  Joseph  Quincy,  Richard  Brath- 

waite's  Mercurius  Britanicus 233-235 

Schaaffs,  Georg,  Zu  Goethe's  Egmont 235-237 

Scholl,  John  William,  Some  Egmont  Inter- 
pretations    237-239 

Warren,    F.   M.,   A   Latin   Counterpart   of 

the  St.  L6ger  Strophe 239-240 

Snyder,  Franklyn  Bliss,  Peter  Buchan  and 

It  Was  a'  for  our  Rightfu'  King 240-242 

MacCracken,  Henry  Noble,  A  Meditation 
upon  Death,  for  the  Tomb  of  Ralph, 
Lord  Cromwell  (c.  1450),  Lord  Treasu- 
rer of  England 243-244 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 


REVIEWS.    *• 

Pitollet,  Camille,  Contributions  a,  1' Etude  de 
1'Hispanisme  de  G.  E.  Lessing.  [Rudolph 
Schevill.] 21-28 

Weeks,  Raymond,  Chevalerie  Vivien.   [A.  Ter- 

racher.]  28-29 

Olson,  Magnus,  Maal  og  Minne.  [L.  M.  Hol- 
lander.]   29-30 

Mene"ndez  Pidal,  Ram6n,  L' Epopee  Castillane. 

IS.  G.  Morley.] 52-56 

Sauer,  August,  Grillparzers  Werke,  I.     [0.  E. 

Lessing.'] 56-57 

Andrews,  A.  LeRoy,  Halfs  Saga  ok  Halfsrekka. 

[L.  M.  Hollander.] 58-60 

Clarke,  Charles  C.,  Jr.,  Common  Difficulties  in 

Reading  French.     [R.  T.  House..'] 60 

Sichel,     Walter,    Sheridan.      [Joseph    Quincy 

Adams,  Jr.] 60-62 

Henning,    Dr.    Hans,    Friedrich     Spielhagen. 

[M.  M.  Skinner.] 83-86 

Lucas,  St.  John,  The  ") 
Oxford    Book    of 
Italian    Verse, 
xinth-xixth  Cen- 
turies. 

Mead,  William  Ed- 
ward, Italy  in 
English  Poetry. 

Schauffler,  Robert  Ha- 
ven, Through  It- 
aly with  the  Poets. 

Wollaston,  George 
Hyde,  The  Eng- 
lishman in  Italy. 

Phelps,  Ruth  Shepard, 
Skies  Italian. 

Wright,   Ernest  Hunter,   The  Authorship  of 

Timon  of  Athens.     [Harry  demons.] 89-91 

Vreeland,  W.  U.,  and  R.  Michaud,  Anthology 
of  French  Prose  and  Poetry.  [Karl  E. 
Weston.] 91-93 

Levi,  M.,  Moliere,  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme. 

[Murray  P.  Brush.] 93 

Keniston,  Hayward,  V.  B.  Ibanez,  La  Barraca. 

[Herbert  A.  Kenyan.] 93-94 

Hauser,  Otto,    Weltgeschichte  der  Literatur. 

[Camillo  von  Klenze.] 114-117 

Stuart,  Donald  Clive,  Stage  Decorations  in 
France  in  the  Middle  Ages.  [f.  M. 
Warren.] 117-119 

Murray,  John  Tucker,  English  Dramatic  Com- 
panies, 1558-1642.  [Ashley  H.  Thorndike.]  119-124 


[A.  A.  Livingston.  ]         86-89 


J 


125-127 
148-151 
151-154 
154-155 
155-156 
156-157 
177-182 
182-184 


•     [A.  Schinz.]        184-186 


Schiff,  Mario,  La  Fille  d'alliance  de  Mon- 
taigne :  Marie  de  Gournay.  [H.  Carring- 
ton  Lancaster.] 

Hill,  Raymond  Thompson,  La  Mule  sanz 
Frain.  [21  Atkinson  Jenkins.] 

Clarence,  Reginald,  The  Stage  Cyclopaedia. 
[Watson  Nicholson.] 

Butler,  Isabel,  Tales  from  the  Old  French.  [E. 
P.  Dargan.] 

Schmidt,  Erich,  Goethes  Werke  in  sechs  Ban- 
den.  [2'.  Moody  Campbell.] 

Espinosa,  Aurelio  M.,  Studies  in  New  Mexi- 
can Spanish.  Part  I.  [C.  C.  Harden.]... 

Lee,  Sidney,  The  French  Renaissance  in  Eng- 
land. [A.  H.  Upham.] 

Streitberg,  Wilhelm,  Die  Gotische  Bibel.  [Her- 
mann Collitz.] 

Lafond,  Paul,  L'Aube  ro- 
mantique. 

Seche',  Le"on,  Muses  roman- 
tiques. 

Se'che',  A.,  et  J.  Bertaut,  Au 
temps  du  Romantisme. 

Claretie,  Jules,  Correspon- 
dan  ce  en  t  re  Victor  Hugo 
et  Paul  Meurice. 

Rios,  Blanca  De  Los,  Del  Siglo  de  Oro. 

Tyler  Northup.] 

Millardet,  G.,  Recueil  de  textes  des  anciens 
dialectes  landais,  Petit  Atlas  linguistique 
d'  une  region  des  Landes  ;  Etudes  de  dia- 
lectologie  landaise.  [A.  Terracher.].. 

Ransome,  Arthur,  A  History  of  Story-Telling. 
[John  M.  Clapp.] 

Woerner,  Roman,  Henrik  Ibsen.  [Henrietta 
Becker  von  Klenze.] 

Krapp,  George  Philip,  Modern  English  :  Its 
Growth  and  Present  Use.  [Nathaniel  E. 
Griffin.] 

Vos,  Bert  John,  Schiller's  Wilhelm  Tell. 
[Starr  WUlard  Cutting.] 

Thieme,  Hugo  Paul,  Le  Cousin  Pons  par  Hono- 
re"  de  Balzac.  [/.  L.  Borgerho/.] 

Jameson,  Russell  Parsons,  Montesquieu  et  1'es- 
clavage.  [Gilbert  Chinard.] 

Howard,  William  G.,  Laokoon.  [J.  A.  C. 
Hildner.] 

Knowles-Favard,  Perfect  French  Possible.  [A. 
G.  H.  Spiers.] 

Santayana,  George,  Three  Philosophical 
Poets — Lucretius,  Dante,  and  Goethe 
[A.  0.  Lovejoy.] 

Jenkins,  T.  Atkinson,  Eructavit.  [George 
L.  Hamilton.] 


[Geo. 


186-188 

188-193 

194 

194-196 

212-219 
219-223 
223-226 
227-229 
229-231 
23V-232 

244-247 
247-250 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


Wiehr,  Joseph,  Hebbel  und  Ibsen  [Hen- 
rietta Becker  von  Klcnze.] 250-252 

Schaechtelin,  P.,  Das  Passe1  Dfifini  und 
Imparfait  im  Altfranzosiechen.  [Ous- 

tav  (/.  Laubscher.] 252-255 

— Burnham,  Josephine  May,  Concessive  Con- 
structions in  Old  English  Prose.  [Hu 
bert  G.  Shearing 255-258 

Hills,  Elijah  Clarence,  and  Reinhardt, 
Louis,  Spanish  Short  Stories.  [S. 

Clriswold  Morley.1 258-260 

Tupper,  Jr.,  Frederick,  The  Riddles  of  the 

Exeter    Book.     [W.    Strunk,    Jr.] 260-261 

Colin,  Th.,  and  Se"rafon.  A.,  Practical  Les- 
sons in  French  Grammar.  1(7.  J. 
Cipriani.]  261-263 

Langlois,  Ch.  V.,  La  Connaissance  de  la 
Nature  et  du  Monde  au  Moyen-Age. 
IF.  L.  Critchloi*.] ." 263-264 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

Belden,  H.  M.,  Venice :  The  <  Maiden  City '...  31 

Lang,  H.  K.,  The  Eyes  as  Generators  of  Love..  31 
Martin,  Margretta,  A  Note  on  Ward's  History 

of  English  Dramatic  Literature 3 1-32 

Hammond,  Eleanor  Prescott,  A  Burgundian 

Copy  of  Chaucer's  Troilus 32 

Schelling,  F.  E.,  William  Lilly  and  The  Al- 
chemist   G2-63 

Livingston,  A.  A.,  Inclite  Arti  a  Raddolcir  la 

Vita 63-64 

Brooke,  C.  F.  Tucker,  A  Correction 64 

Starck,  Taylor,  The  Bottle  Imp 94 

Forsythe,  R.  S.,  A  Note  on  Chapman 95 

Emerson,  O.  F.,  The  New  Chaucer  Item 95 

Boediker,  A.  Trampe,  Covade,  not  conaclc 127 

Gilbert,  Allan  H.,  A  Note  on  '  A  British 

Icarus' 127-128 

Hulme,  Wm.  H.,  Shenstone  on  Richardson's 

Pamela 158-159 

R'lutz-Rees,  Caroline,  A  Coincidence  explained  159 
Hibbard,  Laura  A.,  The  Nibelungenlied  and  Sir 

Seves  of  Hampton 159-160 

Tilley,  M.  P.,  On  the  Name  "  Seignior  Prop- 

sero" 196-197 


Henning,  Geo.  N.,  Date  of  Hugo's  Expiation...  197-198 
Jonas,  J.  B.  E.,  "Eastward  Hoe"  and  bicched 

bones 198 

Moore,  John  Robert,  Parallels  between  Peele 

and  Tennyson 193-199 

Cooper,  Lane,  'She  was  a  Maiden  City' 199 

Gilbert,  Allau  H.,  Milton's  China 199-200 

Kenyon,  John  S.,  A  Syntactical  Note 232 

Cooper,  Lane,  Never  less  alone  than  when 

alone 232 

Cunliffe,  J.  Wv— Thought  and  Afterthought 

in  Browning's  Paracelsus 264 

Ibershoff,  C.  H. — A  Neglected  Klopstock- 

Milton  Parallel..  264 


BRIEF   MENTION. 

Bartsch-Wiese,  Chrcstomathie  de  1'ancien  fran- 

9ais 32 

Templeton,  Alexandre  Dumas  (Pere),  Pages 

choisies 32 

Josselyii,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the 

Divine  Comedy 64 

Soromer,  Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian 

Romances 95 

Gaiffe,  Le  Drame  en  France  au  xvnie  Sificle...  96 

Gerig,  Jean  Pelisson  de  Condrieu 96 

Gillie'ron  et  Edmont,  Atlas  linguistique  de  la 

France 128 

Meyer-Liibke,  Romanisches  etymologisches 

Worterbuch 128 

Archive  de  Investigaciones  Hist6ricas 160 

The  Spanish  Tristan 160 

Mackenzie,  A.  S.,  The  Evolution  of  Literature  200 

Bibliotheca  romanica,  etc , 200 

Stadi  Critici ;  Revue  de  Phone"tique 232 

Hanssen,  Friedrich,  Spanische  Grammatik 232 

Blackburn,  E.  M.,  A  Study  of  Words 264 

Fowler,  H.  W.,  and  Fowler,  F.  G.,  The 

Concise  Oxford  Dictionary  of  Current 

English    264 

ERRATA. 

200. 


INDEX  TO    VOLUME   XXVI,    1911. 


'A  British  Icarus,'  A  Note  on  — 

Adams,  Jr.,  Joseph  Quincy  :   Sichel,  Walter, 

Sheridan 

—  Richard  Brathwaite's  Mercurius  Britan- 


tcus 


Alchemist,  William  Lilly  and  The — 

Andrews,  A.  LeEoy,  Old  Norse  Notes 

—  Halfs  Saga  ok  Halfsrekka  (see  Hollander)... 
Anthology  of  French  Prose  and  Poetry  (see 

Vreeland,  Michaud,  and  Weston)./. 

Archive  de  Investigaciones  Historicas 

Armstrong,  E.  C.,  Bartsch-Wiese,  Chresto- 

mathie  de  1'ancien  f rangaia 

—  Gerig,  Jean  Pelisson  de  Condrieu 

—  Gillie"ron  et  Edmont,  Atlas  linguistique 
de  la   France 

— Meyer-Liibke,  Romanisches  etymologisches 
Worterbuch 

Arthurian  Romances,  Vulgate  Version  of  the  — 
(see  Bruce  and  Sommer) 

Atlas  linguistique  de  la  France  (see  Gillie'ron, 
Edmont  and  Armstrong) 

—  Petit  —  linguistique  d'une  region  desLandes 
(see  Millardet  and  Terracher)  ..' 

Baker,   George  M.,   An    Echo    of    Schiller's 

Ranker  in  England 

Balzac,  Le  Cousin  Pons  par  Honore*  de  —  (see 

Thieme  and  Borgerhofl) 

Bartsch-Wiese,  Chrestomathie  de  1'ancien  fran- 

pais  (see  Armstrong) 

Belden,  H.  M.,  Venice  :  The  'Maiden  City'... 
Bertaut,  J.,  Se'che',  A.,  et — ,   Au  Temps  du 

Romantisme  (see  Schinz) , 

JBeves  of  Hampton,  The  Nibelungenlied  and  Sir  — 

Bibliotheca  romanica 

bicched  bones,  "Eastward  Hoe"  and — 

Blackburn,  E.  M.,  A  Study  of  Words   (see 

Bright)     

Blasco  Ibanez  V.,  La  Barraca    (see    Keniston 

and  Kenyon) 

Boedtker,  A.  Trampe,  Covacle,  not  conacle 

De  Boer's  Edition  of  Philomena,  Notes  on  — 
Borgerhoff,    J.   L. :  Thieme,    Hugo  Paul,    Le 

Cousin  Pons  par  Honore"  de  Balzac 

Bottle  Imp,  The  — 

Brathwaite,  Richard  — 's  Mercurius  Britan- 

icus   233-235 

Bright,  J.  W. :  Mackenzie,  The  Evolutio  of 

Literature    200 

—  Blackburn,   A  Study  of   Words 264 

—  Fowler,  The   Concise   Oxford  Dictionary 

of  Current  English 264 

Broglio,  Pseudonyms  of  the  Nobles  of  the  —  in 
Venetian  Popular  Poetry 201-208 


127-128 
60-62 

233-235 
62-63 
46-50 
58-60 

91-93 
160 

32 

96 

128 
128 
95 
128 
188-193 

171-172 
223-226 

32 
31 

184-186 
159-160 
200 
198 

264 

93-94 
127 
77-78 

223-226 
94 


Brooke,  C.  F.  Tucker,  The  Allegory  in  Lyly's 
Endimion , 12-15 

—  A  Correction 64 

Brown,  Carleton,  The   Cursor  Mundi  and  the 

"Southern  Passion" 15-18 

—  Another  Contemporary  Allusion  in  Chaucer's 

Troilus 208-211 

Browning's  Paracelsus,  Thought  and  After- 
thought in  — 264 

Bruce,  J.  D.,  Some  Proper  Names  in  Layamon's 
Brut  not  Represented  in  Wace  or  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth 65-69 

—  Sommer,  Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian 
Romances 95 

Brush,  M.  P.:  Templeton,  Alexandra  Dumas 
(P6re),  Pages  choisies. 32 

—  Levi,   M.,   Molifere,  Le  Bourgeois  Gentil- 
homme 93 

Buchan,  Peter  —  and  It  Was  a'  for  our 

Rightfu'  King 240-242 

Burnham,  Josephine  May,  Concessive  Con- 
structions in  Old  English  Prose  (see 
Shearin )  255-258 

Butler,  Isabel,  Tales  from  the  Old  French  (see 
Dargan) 154-155 

Campbell,  T.  Moody  :  Schmidt,  Erich,  Goethes 

Werke  in  sechs  Banden 155-156 

Chapman,  A  Note  on  — 95 

Chaucer,  A  New  —  Item 19-21 

—  The  New  — Item 95 

Chaucer's,  The  Date  of  —  Marriage  Group 172-174 

—  Pronunciation  of  ai,  ay,  ei,  ey,  A  Note  on  —  76-77 

—  Troilus,  A  Burgundian  Copy  of  — 32 

—  Troilus,  Another  Contemporary  Allusion  in  —  208-21 1 
Chevalerie  Vivien  (see  Weeks  and  Terracher).  28-29 

China,  Milton's— 199-200 

Chinard,    Gilbert :  Jameson,    Russell  Parsons, 

Montesquieu  et  1'esclavage 227-229 

Chrestomathie  de  1'ancien  franyais  (see  Bartsch- 
Wiese  and  Armstrong) 32 

Chretien  de  Troyes,  A  Note  on  a  Borrowing 

from— 73-74 

Cipriani,  C.  J. :  Colin,  Th.,  and  S6rafon,  A., 

Practical  Lessons  in  French  Grammar . .  26 1-263 
Clapp,  John  M.  :  Ransome,  Arthur,  A  History 

of  Story-Telling 194 

Clarence,  Reginald,  The  Stage  Cyclopaedia 

(see  Nicholson) 151-154 

Claretie,  Jules,  Correspondance  entre  Victor 

Hugo  et  Paul  Meurice  (see  Schinz) 184-186 

Clarke,  Charles  C.,  Jr.,  Common  Difficulties 

in  Reading  French  (see  House) 60 

demons,  Harry :  Wright,  Ernest  Hunter,  The 

Authorship  of  Timonof  Athens 89-91 


11 


INDEX  TO    VOLUME  XXVI,    1911. 


Coincidence,  A  —  Explained 

Coleman,  A.,  Influence  of  English  Literature 
on  Flaubert  before  1851 

Colin,  Th.,  and  Serafon,  A.,  Practical  Les- 
sons in  French  Grammar  (see  Cipriani)  . 

Collitz,  Hermann :  Streitberg,  Wilhelm,  Die 
Gotische  Bibel 

conacle,  Covade,  not  — 

Concessive  Constructions  in  Old  English 
Prose  (see  Burnham  and  Shearin) 

Condrieu,  Jean  Pelisson  de  —  (see  Gerig  and 
Armstrong) 

Connaissance,  La  —  de  la  Nature  et  du 
Monde  au  Moyen-Age  (see  Critchlow  and 
Langlois )  

Cooper,  Lane,  'She  was  a  Maiden  City' 

—  Never  less  alone  than  when  alone 

Correction,  A  — 

Covacle,  not  conade 

Critchlow,    F.    L. :    Langlois,    Ch.    V.,    La 

Connaissance  de  la  Nature  et  du  Monde 
au  Moyen-Age 

Critici,  Studi  — 

Cromwell,  A  Meditation  upon  Death,  for 
the  Tomb  of  Ralph,  Lord —  (c.  1450), 
Lord  Treasurer  of  England 

Cunliffe,  J.  W.,  Thought  and  Afterthought 
in  Browning's  Paracelsus 

Cursor  Mundi,  The  —  and  the  "Southern 
Passion  " 

Cutting,  Starr  Willard  :  Vos,  Bert  John,  Schil- 
ler's Wilhelm  Tell 

"  Dante  Alighieri  son  .  .  .,"  The  Sonnet  — .... 

—  Three     Philosophical     Poets — Lucretius 
— ,  and  Goethe   (see  Lovejoy  and  Santa- 
yana)    

Dargan,  E.  P.  :  Butler,  Isabel,  Tales  from  the 
Old  French 

Date,  The  Transmission  and  —  of  Genesis  B... 

Debate,  The  —  of  Heart  and  Eye 

Dm  of  Lions,  The  Ballad  of  The  — 

Dialectes,  Recueil  de  textes  des  ancieus  —  Ian- 
dais  (see  Millardet  and  Terracher) 

Dialectologie,  Etudes  de  —  landaise  (see  Mil- 
lardet and  Terracher) 

Divine  Comedy,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
the  —  (see  Josselyn  and  Shaw) 

Doppeldrucke,  Die  —  von  Goethes  Werken, 
1806-1808 

Dramatic  Companies,  English  — ,  1558-1642 
(see  Murray  and  Thorndike) , 

Drame,  Le  —  en  France  au  xvine  Siecle  (see 
Gaiffe  and  McKenzie) 

Dumas,  Alexandre —  (Pere),  Pages  choisies 
(see  Brush  and  Templeton) 


"  Eastward  Hoe  "  and  bicched  bones. 
Eaten  Heart,  The  Legend  of  the  — . 


159      Edmont,  Gillie'ron  et  — ,  Atlas  linguistique  de 

la  France  (see  Armstrong) 128 

143-146      Egmont,  Zu  einigen  Stellen  in  Goethes  — 174-176 

—  Zu  Goethes  — 235-237 

261-263      —  Some  —  Interpretations 237-239 

Emerson,  Oliver  Farrar,  A  New  Chaucer  Item.  19-21 

182-184  —  The  New  Chaucer  Item 95 

127  —  The  Suitors  in  the  Parlemcnt  of  Foules  again.  109-111 

Endimion,  The  Allegory  in  Lyly's  — 12-15 

255-258  England,  An  Echo  of  Schiller's  Eduberio  — ...  171-172 

—  The  French  Kenaissance  in  —  (see  Lee  and 

96         Upham) 177-182 

English,  Modern  — :  Its  Growth  and  Present 

Use  (see  Krapp  and  Griffin) 212-219 

263-264      —  Literature,  Influence  of  —  on  Flaubert  before 

199         1851 143-146 

232      Englishman,   The  —  in   Italy  (see  Wollaston 

64          and  Livingston) 86-89 

127      Epopee  Castillane,  L'  —  (see  Menendez  Pidal 

andMorley) 52-56 

Eructavit  (see  Jenkins  and  Hamilton) 247-250 

263-264      Errata    200 

232      Espinosa,  Aurelio  M.,  Studies  in  New  Mexican 

Spanish:  Parti,  (see  Marden) 156-157 

Etymological  Notes 165-167 

243-244      Evolution,  The  —  of  Literature  (see  Mackenzie 

and  Bright) 200 

204      Exeter  Book,  The  Riddles  of  the  —    (see 

Strunk,  Jr.,  and  Tupper,  Jr.) 260-261 

15-18      Exodus,  Textual  Notes  on  the  ME.  Genesis 

and  — 50-52 

219-223      Expiation,  Date  of  Hugo's— 197-198 

Eyes,  The  —  as  Generators  of  Love 31 

137-139 

Favard,     Knowles,  Perfect  French   Possible 

(see  Spiers) 231-232 

244-247      Flaubert,  Influence  of  English  Literature  on  — 

before  1851 143-146 

154-155      Folk-song,  The  Glove  and  the  Lions  in  Ken- 

129-133         tucky  — 113-114 

161-165      Forsythe,  R.  S.,  A  Note  on  Chapman 95 

167-169      —  Certain  Sources  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle 104-107 

Foster,  C.  H.,  A  Note  on  Chaucer's  Pronun- 

188-193          ciation  of  ai,  ay,  ei,  ey 76-77 

Foster,  Francis  A.,  The  Mystery  Plays  and  the 

188-193          Northern  Passion 169-171 

Fowler,  F.  G.,  Fowler,  H.  W.  and—,  The 
64          Concise    Oxford    Dictionary    of    Current 

English    (see  Bright)     264 

133-137      Fowler,    H.    W.,    and    Fowler,    F.    G.,   The 
Concise    Oxford    Dictionary    of    Current 

119-124          English    ( see   Bright) 264 

French,    Perfect  —  Possible    (see    Knowles- 
96          Favard  and  Spiers) 231-232 

22      Gaiffe,  Le  Drame  en  France  au  xvme  Siecle 

(see  McKenzie) 96 

198      Gay,  Lucy  M.,  Notes  on  De  Boer's  Edition  of 

1-8          Philomena 77-78 


INDEX  TO    VOLUME  XXVI,    1911. 


in 


Genesis,  Textual   Notes  on   the  ME.  —  and 

Exodus 50-52 

—  Old    Saxon    Karm    and    Hrom ;     —  254, 
Heliand  2459 141-143 

—  The  Transmission  and  Date  of  —  B 129-133 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  Some  Proper  Names  in 

Layamon's  Brut  not  Kepresented  in  Wace 

or  — 65-69 

Gerig,  Jean  Pelisson  de  Condrieu  (see  Arm- 
strong)   96 

German,  A  Summary  of  the  Protestant  Faith 
in  Middle  Low— , 70-73 

Gerould,  Gordon  Hall,  The  Transmission  and 
Date  of  Genesis  B 129-133 

Gilbert,  Allan  H.,  A  Note  on  'A  British  Icarus '     127-128 

—  Milton's  China 199-200 

Gillie'ron  et  Edmont,  Atlas  linguistique  de  la 

France  (see  Armstrong) 128 

Gleim's  Grenadierlieder,  Traces  of  —  in  1809..     112-113 
Glove,  The  —  and  the  Lions  in  Kentucky  Folk- 
song      113-114 

Goethe,  Three  Philosophical  Poets — Lucre- 
tius, Dante,  and  —  (see  Love  joy  and 
Santayana)  244-247 

—  Zu   —s  Egmont 235-237 

Goethes  Egmont,  Zu  einigen  Stellen  in  — 174-176 

—  Werke  in  sechs  Banden  (see  Schmidt  and 
Campbell) 155-156 

—  Werken,  Die  Doppeldrucke  von  — ,  1806- 

1808 133-137 

Gotische  Bibel,  Die  (see  Collitz  and  Streitberg)  182-184 
Gournay,  La  fille  d' alliance  de  Montaigne  : 

Marie  de  —  (see  Schiff  and  Lancaster) 125-127 

Grammar,  Practical  Lessons  in  French  — 

(see  Cipriani,  Colin  and  Se"rafon) 261-263 

Grammatik,  Zur  spanischen — 97-104 

—  Spanische  —  (see  Hanssen  and  Marden) 232 

Greene  and  Lodge's  Looking-glass,  Two  Paral- 
lels to  — 146-148 

Grenadierlieder,  Traces  of  Gleim's  —  in  1809..     112-113 
Griffin,  Nathaniel  E.  :  Krapp,  George  Philip, 
Modern  English :  Its  Growth  and    Present 

Use 212-219 

Grillparzers  Werke,  I.  (see  Saner  and  Leasing)        56-57 

Halfs  Saga  ok  Halfsrekka  (see  Andrews  and 
Hollander) 58-60 

Hamilton,  George  L. :  Jenkins,  T.  Atkinson, 
Eructavit  247-250 

Hammond,  Eleanor  Prescott,  A  Burgundian 
Copy  of  Chaucer's  Troilus 32 

—  A  Reproof  to  Lydgate 74-76 

Hanford,  James  Holly,  The  Debate  of  Heart 

and  Eye 161-165 

Hanssen,  Friedrich,  Spanische  Grammatik  (see 

Marden) 232 

Hauser,  Otto,  Weltgeschichte  der  Literatur 

(see  von  Klenze) 114-117 

Heart,  The  Legend  of  the  Eaten  — 1-8 

—  The  Debate  of  —  and  Eye 161-165 


Hebbcl  und  Ibaen  (see  von  Klenze  and 
Wiehr)  250-252 

Heliand  2459,  Old  Saxon  Karm  and  Hrom ; 

Genesis254,  — 141-143 

Hemingway,  Samuel  B.,  The  Relation  of  A 
Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream  to  Romeo  and 
Juliet 78-80 

Henning,  Geo.  N.,  Date  of  Hugo's  Expiation...     197-198 

—  Dr.  Hans,  Friedrich  Spielhagen  (see  Skin- 
ner)         83-86 

Hibbard,  Laura  A.,  The  Nibelungenlied  and  Sir 

Beves  of  Hampton 159-160 

Hildcbrandslied,  Jottings  on  the — 211-212 

Hilduer,  J.  A.  C.  :  Howard,  Wm.  G.,  Laokoon    229-231 
Hill,  Raymond  Thompson,  La  Mule  sanz  Frain 
(see  Jenkins) 148-151 

—  Two  Old  French  Lyrics  hitherto  Unpublished        37-39 
Hills,     Elijah     Clarence,     and     Reinhardt, 

Louise,  Spanish  Short  Stories   (see  Mor- 

ley)  258-260 

Hispanisme,  Contributions  Jl  1' Etude  de  1' —  de 

G.  E.  Lessing  (see  Pitollet  and  Schevill) 21-28 

Hollander,  L.  M.  :  Olson,  Magnus,  Maal  og 

Minnel 29-30 

—  Andrews,  A.  LeRoy,  H&lfs  Saga  ok  Halfs- 
rekka         58-60 

—  Zu  einigen  Stellen  in  Goethes  Egmont 174-176 

House,  R.  T. :  Clarke,  Charles  C.,  Jr.,  Common 

Difficulties  in  Reading  French 60 

Howard,  William  G.,  Laokoon  (see  Hi  Id  ner)..  229-231 
Hrom,  Old  Saxon  Karm  and  —  ;  Genesis  254, 

Heliand  2459 141-143 

Hugo,  Correspondance  entre  Victor  —  et  Paul 

Meurice  (see  Claretie  and  Schinz) 184-186 

—  Date  of  — 's  Expiation 197-198 

Hulme,  Wm.  H.,  Shenstone  on  Richardson's 

Pamela 158-159 

Ibershoff,   C.   H.,   A   German  Translation  of 

Passages  in  Thomson's  Seasons 107-109 

—  A  Neglected  Klopstock-Milton  Parallel . .  264 
Ibsen,  Henrik  (see  von  Klenze  and  Woerner),.  194-196 

—  Hebbel   und  —    (see  von   Klenze  and 
Wiehr)    250-252 

Icarus,'  A  Note  on  'A  British  — 127-128 

Iraparfait,  .Das  Passe"  De"fini  und  —  im 
Altfranzosischen  (see  Laubscher  and 

Schaechtelin)    252-255 

Indite  Arti  a  Raddolcir  la  Vita 63-64 

It   Was   a'   for   our  Rightfu'   King,   Peter 

Buchan  and  — 240-242 

Italian,  Skies  —  (see  Livingston  and  Phelps)..        86-89 

—  The  Oxford  Book  of  —  Verse,  xmth-xixth 
Centuries  (see  Lucas  and  Livingston) 86-89 

Italy  in  English  Poetry  (see  Livingston  and 
Mead) 86-89 

—  The  Englishman  in  —  (see  Livingston  and 
Wollaston) 86-89 

—  Through  —  with  the  Poets  (see  Livingston 

and  Schauffler) 86-89 


IV 


INDEX  TO    VOLUME  XXVI,    1911. 


Jackson,  George  Pullen,  Traces  of  Gleim's 
Grenadierlieder  in  1809 112-113 

Jameson,  Russell  Parsons,  Montesquieu  et 

1'esclavage  (see  Chinard) 227-229 

Jenkins,  T.  Atkinson  :  Hill,  Eajmond  Thomp- 
son, La  Mule  sanz  Frain 148-151 

—  Eructavit   (see  Hamilton) 247-250 

Johnson,  Dr.  —  and  H.  P.  Sturz 176-177 

Jonas,  J.  B.  E.,  "  Eastward  Hoe"  and  bicched 

bones 

Joseph,    A    Liturgical    Play    of  —  and    his 

Brethren 33-37 

Josselyn,   Introduction  to  the    Study   of    the 

Divine  Comedy  (see  Shaw) 64 

Jott  ings  on  the  Hildebrandslied 21 1-212 

Karm,  Old  Saxon  —  and  Hrom  ;   Genesis  254, 

Heliand  2459 141-143 

Keniston,  Hayward,  V.  Blasco  Ibanez,  La 

Barraca  (see  Kenyon) 93-94 

Kentucky,  The  Glove  and  the  Lion  in  — 

Folk-song 113-114 

Kenyon,  Herbert  A.  :  Keniston,  Hayward,  V. 

Blasco  Ibafiez,  La  Barraca , 93-94 

—  John  S.,  A  Syntactical  Note 232 

Kittredge,  G.  L.,  The   Ballad   of  The  Den  of 

Lions 167-169 

Klaeber,  Fr.,  Jottings  on  the  Hildebrandslied..,  211-212 

—  Old  Saxon  Karm  and  Hrom  ;  Genesis  254, 
Heliand  2459 141-143 

von  Klenze,  Camillo :  Hauser,  Otto,  Weltge- 
schichte  der  Literatnr 114-117 

—  Henrietta  Becker :  Woerner,  Roman,  Hen- 
riklbsen 194-196 

— :  Wiehr,  Joseph,  Hebbel  und  Ibsen 250-252 

Klopstock,  A  Neglected Milton  Parallel  264 

Knowles-Favard,  Perfect  French  Possible  (see 

Spiers) 231-232 

Krapp,  George  Philip,  Modern  English :  Its 

Growth  and  Present  Use  (see  Griffin) 212-219 

Kurrelmeyer,  W.,  Die  Doppeldrucke  von 

Goethes  Werken,  1806-1808 133-137 

Lafond,  Paul,  L' Aube  romantique  (see  Schinz)     184-186 

Lancaster,  H.  Carrington  :  Schiff,  Mario,  La 
fille  d' alliance  de  Montaigne :  Marie  de 
Gournay 125-127 

Landais,  Recueil  de  textes  des  anciens  dialectes 
—  (see  Millardet  and  Terracher) 188-193 

Landaise,  Etudes  de  dialectologie  —  (see  Mil- 
lardet and  Terracher) 188-193 

Landes,  Petit  Atlas  linguistique  d'une  region 
des  —  (see  Millardet  and  Terracher) 188-193 

Lang,  H.  R.,  The  Eyes  as  Generators  of  Love.  31 

Langlois,  Ch.  V.,  La  Connaissance  de  la  Na- 
ture et  du  Monde  au  Moyen-Age  (see 
Critchlow)  263-264 

Language  Teaching,  Dr.  Joseph  Webbe  and  — 

(1622) 40-46 


Laokoon  (see  Howard  and  Hildner) 229-231 

Laubscher,  Gustav  G.:  Schaechtelin,  P., 
Das  Passe1  Ddfini  und  Imparfait  im  Alt- 
franzosischen  252-255 

Law,  Eobert  Adger,  Two  Parallels  to  Greene 

and  Lodge's  Looking-glass 146-148 

Layamon's  Brut,  Some  Proper  Names  in  —  not 
represented  in  Wace  or  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth 65-69 

Lee,  Sidney,  The  French  Renaissance  in  Eng- 
land (see  Upham) 177-182 

L6ger,  A  Latin  Counterpart  of  the  St.  — 

Strophe    239-240 

Lessing,  Contributions  &  1'Etude  de  1'Hispa- 
nismede  G.  E.— (see  Pitollet  and  Schevill)  21-28 

—  O.  E. :  Sauer,  August,  Grillparzers  Werke,  I.        56-57 
Levi,  M.,  Moliere,  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme 

(see  Brush) 

Lilly,  William,  and  The  Alchemist... 62-63 

Literatur,  Weltgeschichte  der  —  (see  Hauser 

and  von  Klenze) 114-117 

Livingston,  A.  A.,  Inclite  Arti  a  Raddolcir  la 

Vita 63-64 

—  Lucas,  St.  John,  The  Oxford  Book  of  Italian 

Verse,  xmth-xixth  Centuries 86-89 

—  Mead,  Wm.  Edward,  Italy  in  English  Poetry        86-89 

—  Phelps,  Ruth  Shepard,  Skies  Italian 86-89 

—  Pseudonyms  of  the  Nobles  of  the  Broglio  in 
Venetian  Popular  Poetry 201-208 

—  Schauffler,   Robert  Haven,   Through  Italy 

with  the  Poets 86-89 

—  Wollaston,  George  Hyde,  The  Englishman 

in  Italy 86-89 

Lodge,    Two    Parallels    to    Greene    and  — 's 

Looking-glass 146-148 

Looking-glass,   Two    Parallels    to  Greene  and 

Lodge's— 146-148 

Love,  The  Eyes  as  Generators  of  — 31 

Lovejoy,  A.  O. :   Santayana,  George,  Three 
Philosophical   Poets  —  Lucretius,   Dante, 

and  Goethe 244-247 

Lucas,  St.  John,  The  Oxford  Book  of  Italian 
Verse,  xmth-xixth  Centuries  (see  Living- 
ston)          86-89 

Lucretius,  Three  Philosophical  Poets 

Dante,  and  Goethe  (see  Lovejoy  and  San- 
tayana)          244-247 

Lydgate,  A  Reproof  to  — 74-76 

Lyly,  The  Allegory  in  — 's  Endimion 12-16 

Maal  og  Minne  (see  Olson  and  Hollander) 29-30 

MacCracken,    Henry    Noble,    A    Meditation 
upon  Death,  for  the  Tomb  of  Ralph,  Lord 
Cromwell    (c.   1450),  Lord  Treasurer  of 

England    243-244 

Mackenzie,  A.  S.,  The  Evolution  of  Literature 

(see  Bright) 200 

'Maiden  City,'  Venice:  The— 31 

—  'She  was  a  — City' 199 


INDEX  TO    VOLUME  XXVI,    1911.. 


Harden,    C.  Carroll  :  Espinosa,    Aurelio   M., 
Studies  in  New  Mexican  Spanish.    Part  I.     156-157 

—  Hanssen,  Spanische  Grammatik 232 

Marriage  Group,  The  Date  of  Chaucer's  — 172-174 

Martin,  Margretta,  A  Note  on  Ward's  History 
of  English  Dramatic  Literature 31-32 

Matzke,  John  E.,  The  Legend  of  the  Eaten 
Heart 1-8 

McKenzie,    Kenneth :  Gaiffe,    Le    Drame   en 
France  au  xviii6  sie"cle 96 

Mead,    William    Edward,    Italy    in    English 
Poetry  (see  Livingston) 86-89 

Meditation,  A  —  upon  Death,  for  the  Tomb 
of  Ralph,  Lord  Cromwell  (c.  1450), 
Lord  Treasurer  of  England 243-244 

Mene"ndez  Pidal,  Ram6n,  L' Epopee  Castillane 
(see  S.  G.  Morley) 52-56 

Mercurius  Britanicus,  Richard  Brathwaite's 

—     233-235 

Meurice,  Correspondance  entre  Victor  Hugo  et 
Paul  —  (see  Claretie  and  Schinz) 184-186 

Meyer-Liibke,     Romanisches     etymologisches 
Worterbuch  (see  Armstrong) 128 

Michaud,  R.,  Vreeland,  W.  U.,  and  — ,  An- 
thology of  French  Prose   and  Poetry    (see 

Weston) 91-93 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  The  Relation  of  A 

—  to  Romeo  and  Juliet ,         78-80 

Millardet,  G.,  Etudes  de  dialectologie  landaise 

(see  Terracher) 188-193 

—  Petit    Atlas   linguistique  d'une  region   des 
Landes  (see  Terracher), 188-193 

—  Recueil    de    textes    des    anciens    dialectes 
landais  (see  Terracher) 188-193 

Milton,  A  Neglected  Klopstock Parallel  264 

Milton's  China 199-200 

Moliere,  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme  (see 

Brush  and  Levi) 93 

Montaigne,  La  fille  d'alliance  de  —  :  Marie  de 

Gournay  (see  Lancaster  and  Schiff) 125-127 

Montesquieu  et  1'esclavage  (see  Jameson  and 

Chinard) 227-229 

Moore,  John  Robert,  Parallels  between  Peele 

and  Tennyson 198-199 

—  Samuel,  A  Further  Note  on  the  Suitors  in 

the  Parliament  of  Fowls 8-12 

—  Samuel,  The  Date  of   Chaucer's  Marriage 

Group 172-174 

Morley,  S.  G.  :  Mene"ndez  Pidal,  Ram6n,  L'Epo- 
pe*e  Castillane 52-56 

—  Hills,   Elijah  Clarence,   and   Reinhardt, 
Louise,    Spanish    Short    Stories 258-260 

Moyen-Age,  La  Connaissance  de  la  Nature 
et   du  Monde   au —  (see   Critchlow   and 

Langlois)     263-264 

Mule  sanz  Frain,  La  —  (see  Hill  and  Jenkins)     148-151 
Murray,  John  Tucker,  English  Dramatic  Com- 
panies, 1558-1642  (see  Thorndike) 119-124 


Muses  romantiques  (see  Schinz  and  Se'che') 184-186 

Mystery  Plays,  The  —  and  the  Northern  Passion    169-171 

Never  less  alone  than  when  alone 232 

New  Mexican,  Studies  in  —  Spanish.  Part  I. 

(see  Espinosa  and  Marden) 156-167 

Nibelungenlied,  The  —  and  Sir  Beves  of  Hampton  159-160 
Nicholson,  Watson  :  Clarence,  Reginald,  The 

Stage  Cyclopaedia 151-154 

Nightingale,  Spelling  in  The  Owl  and  The  — ....  139-141 

Norse,  Old  —  Notes 46-50 

Northern  Passion,  The  Mystery  Plays  and  the  —  169-171 
Northup,  George  Tyler  :  De  Los  Rios,  Blanca, 

Del  Siglo  de  Oro 186-188 

Old  English  Prose,  Concessive  Construc- 
tions in  —  (see  Burnham  and  Shearin)  255-258 

—  French,  Tales  from  the  —   (see  Butler 

and  Dargan) 154-155 

—  Two  —  French    Lyrics    hitherto    Unpub- 
lished      37-39 

—  Norse  Notes 46-50 

—  Saxon  Karm   and  Hromj   Genesis  254, 
Heliand    2459 141-143 

Oldcastle,  Certain  Sources  of  Sir  John — ..     104-107 

Olsoi^  Magnus,  Maal  og  Minne  (see  Hol- 
lander)    29-30 

Owl,  Spelling  in  The  —  and  The  Nightin- 
9ale  139-141 

Oxford,  The  —  Book  of  Italian  Verse,  xmth- 
xixth  Centuries  (see  Lucas  and  Living- 
ston)    86-89 

Oxford  Dictionary,  The  Concise  —  of  Cur- 
rent English  (see  Fowler  and  Bright) ..  264 

Paracelsus,  Thought  and  Afterthought  in 
Browning's  —  264 

Parlement  of  Foules,  The  Suitors  in  the  — 
again 109-111 

Parliament  of  Fowls,  A  Further  Note  on 

the  Suitors  in  the  — 8-12 

Passe"  D6fini,  Das  —  und  Imparfait  im 
AltfranzOsischen  (see  Laubscher  and 
Schaechtelin )  252-255 

Patterson,  Shirley  Gale,  A  Note  on  a  Bor- 
rowing from  Chr6tien  de  Troyes 73-74 

Peele,  Parallels  between  —  and  Tennyson..     198-199 

Phelps,  Ruth  Shepard,  Skies  Italian  (see 

Livingston)  86-89 

Phillipson,  Paul  H.,  The  Direction  of 

Thought  in  the  Wartburglieder  of  1817. .  81-83 

Philomena,  Notes  on  De  Boer's  Edition 
of—  77-78 

Phongtique,  Revue  de  — 232 

Pietsch,  K,  Zur  Spanischen  Grammatik . . .       97-104 

Pitollet,  Camille,  Contributions  a  1'fitude 
de  I'Hispanisme  de  G.  E.  Lessing  (see 
Schevill)  21-28 


VI 


INDEX  TO    VOLUME  XXVI,   1911. 


Poetry,  Italy  in  English—  (see  Livingston 
and  Mead) 86~89 

Poets,  Through  Italy  with  the —  (see  Liv- 
ingston and  Schauffler ) 86-89 

Pons,  Le  Cousin  —  par  Honore"  de  Balzac 

(see  Thieme  and  Borgerhoff) 223-226 

Practical  Lessons  in  French  Grammar 

(see  Cipriani,  Colin,  and  SeYafon) 261-263 

Propsero,"  On  the  Name  "  Seignior  — 196-197 

Protestant,  A  Summary  of  the  —  Faith  in 

Middle  Low  German 70-73 

Pseudonyms  of  the  Nobles  of  the  Broglio  in 
Venetian  Popular  Poetry 201-208 

Ransome,  Arthur,  A  History  of  Story-telling 

(see   Clapp) 194 

Ranker,  An  Echo  of  Schiller's  —  in  England     171-172 

Reading,  Common  Difficulties  in  —  French 

(see  Clarke  and  House) 60 

Reinhardt,  Louise,  Hills,  Elijah  Clarence 
and  — ,  Spanish  Short  Stories  (see 
Morley)  258-260 

Renaissance,  The  French  —  in  England  (see 
Lee  and  Upham) 177-182 

Revue  de  Phonetique 232 

Richards,  Alfred  E.,  Dr.  Johnson  and  H.  P. 

Sturz    176-177 

Richardson's  Pamela,  Shenstone  on — ....     158-159 

Riddles,    The  —  of    the   Exeter    Book    (see 

Strunk,   Jr.,   and   Tupper,   Jr.) 260-261 

De  Los  Rios,  Blanca,  Del  Siglo  de  Oro  (see 

Northup)     186-188 

Romanica,    Bibliotheca  — 200 

Romanisches     etymologisches     Worterbuch 

(see  Meyer-Liibke  and  Armstrong) 128 

Romantique,    L'Aube —    (see    Lafond    and 

Schinz)     184-186 

Romantisme,  Au  Temps  du —  (see  Schinz 

and   Se-che")     184-186 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  The  Relation  of  A  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream  to  — 78-80 

Ruutz-Rees,  Caroline,  A  Coincidence  Ex- 
plained    159 

Santayana,  George,  Three  Philosophical 
Poets  —  Lucretius,  Dante  and  Goethe 
(see  Lovejoy) 244—247 

Sauer,  August,  Grillparzera  Werke,  I  (see 
O.  E.  Leasing) 56-57 

Schaaffs,  Georg,  Zu  Goethe's  Egmont 235-237 

Schaechtelin,  P.,  Das  Passe"  Dgfini  und 
Imparfait  im  Altfranzosischen  (see  Laub- 
scher )  252-255 

Schauffler,  Robert  Haven,  Through  Italy 

with  the  Poets  (see  Livingston) 86-89 

Schelling,  F.  E.,  William  Lilly  and  The 
Alchemist  .  62-63 


21-28 


Schevill,  Rudolph:  Pitollet,  Camille,  Con- 
tributions a  1'fitude  de  1'Hispanisme  de 
G.  E.  Lessing 

Schiff,  Mario,  La  fille  d'alliance  de  Mon- 
taigne: Marie  de  Gournay  (see  Lancas- 
ter)    125-127 

Schiller's  Rduber,  An  Echo  of —  in  Eng- 
land    171-172 

—  Wilhelm  Tell   (see  Vos  and  Cutting)  . .  .     219-223 
Schinz,  A.:   Claretie,  Jules,  Correspondance 

entre  Victor  Hugo  et  Paul  Meurice....     184-186 

—  Lafond,  Paul,  L'Aube  Romantique 184-186 

—  Se'che",  Leon,  Muses  romantiques 184-186 

—  Se'che',  A.,  et  J.  Bertaut,  Au  Temps  du 
Romantisme    184-186 

Schmidt,  Erich,  Goethes  Werke  in  seehs 

Banden  (see  Campbell) 155-156 

Scholl,  John  William,  Some  Egmont  Inter- 
pretations    237-239 

Se'che,  A.,  et  J.  Bertaut,  Au  Temps  du 
Romantisme  (see  Schinz) 184-186 

—  Leon,  Muses  romantiques  (see  Schinz)  ..     184-186 
"Seignior  Propsero,"  On  the  Name — ....     196-197 
Sfirafon,  A.,  Colin,  Th.,  and  — ,  Practical 

Lessons  in  French  Grammar  (see  Ci- 
priani)    261-263 

Shaw,  J.  E. :  Josselyn,  Introduction  to  the 
Study  of  the  Divine  Comedy 64 

Shearin,  Hubert  G.,  The  Glove  and  the 

Lions  in  Kentucky  Folk-Song 113-114 

—  Burnham,     Josephine     May,      Concessive 
Constructions    in    Old    English    Prose . .     255-258 

Shenstone  on  Richardson's  Pamela 158-159 

Sheridan   ( see  Adams  and  Sichel ) 60-62 

Sichel,  Walter,  -Sheridan    (see  Adams) 60-62 

Siglo  de  Oro,  Del —  (see  De  Los  Rios  and 

Northup)     186-188 

Skinner,  M.  M. :  Henning,  Dr.  Hans,  Fried- 
rich  Spielhagen 83-86 

Snyder,  Franklyn  Bliss,  Peter  Buchan  and 

It  Was  a'  for  our  Rightfu'  King 240-242 

Sommer,  Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian 

Romances  (see  Bruce) 

Sources,  Certain  —  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle. . 
"  Southern  Passion,"  The  Cursor  Mundi  and 

the  —   

Spanische   Grammatik    (see   Hanssen   and 

Marden) 

Spanish,  The  —  Tristan 

Spanish  Short  Stories    (see  Hills,  Morley, 

and  Reinhardt)    258-260 

Spelling  in  The  Owl  and  The  Nightingale . .     139-141 
Spielhagen,    Friedrich    (see    Henning    and 

Skinner)     83-86 

Spiers,  A.  G.  H.:  Knowles-Favard,  Perfect 

French  Possible 231-232 

Stage,  The  —  Cyclopaedia  ( see  Clarence  and 

Nicholson)    151-154 


95 
104-107 

15-18 

232 
160 


INDEX  TO    VOLUME  XXVI,    1911. 


Stage  Decorations  in  France  in  the  Middle 

Ages  (see  Stuart  and  Warren) 

Starck,  Taylor,  The  Bottle  Imp 

Story-telling,  A  History  of  —  (see  Clapp 

and  Ransome ) 

Streitberg,  Wilhelm,  Die  Gotische  Bibel 

(see  Collitz) 

Strunk,  W.,  Jr.,  Textual  Notes  on  the  ME. 

Genesis  and  Exodus 

—  Tupper,  Jr.,  Frederick,  The  Riddles  of 
the  Exeter  Book 

Stuart,  Donald  Clive,  Stage  Decorations  in 
France  in  the  Middle  Ages  (see  Warren) 

Studi   Critici 

Study  of  Words,  A  —  (see  Blackburn  and 
Bright)  

Sturz,  Dr.  Johnson  and  H.  P.  — 

Suitors,  A  Further  Note  on  the  —  in  the 
Parliament  of  Fowls 

—  The  —  in  the  Parlement  of  Foules  again 
Syntactical,    A  — Note 

Tales  from  the  Old  French  (see  Butler  and 

Dargan )  

Tell,  Schiller's  Wilhelm—  (see  Vos  and 

Cutting) 

Templeton,  Alexander  Dumas  (Pere),  Pages 

choisies  (see  Brush) 

Tennyson,  Parallels  between  Peele  and  — . . 
Terracher,  A. :  Millardet,  G.,  Etudes  de  dia- 

lectologie  landaise 

—  Millardet,    G.,   Petit   Atlas   linguistique 
d'une   region   des   Landes 

—  Millardet,  G.,  Recueil  de  textes  des  an- 
ciens  dialectes  landais 

—  Weeks,  Raymond,  Chevalerie  Vivien 

Thieme,  Hugo  Paul,  Le  Cousin  Pons  par 

Honor6  de  Balzac  (see  Borgerhoff) 

Thomson's  Seasons,  A  German  Translation 

of   Passages   in  — 

Thorndikc,  Ashley  H.:  Murray,  John  Tuck- 
er, English  Dramatic  Companies,  1558- 
1642  > 

Thought,  The  Direction  of  —  in  the  Wart- 
burglieder  of  1817 

Tilley,  M.  P.,  On  the  Name  "  Seignior  Prop- 
sero  " 

Timon  of  Athens,  The  Authorship  of  — 
( see  demons  and  Wright) 

Translation,  A  German  —  of  Passages  in 
Thomson's  Seasons 

Transmission,  The  —  and  Date  of  Genesis  B 

Tristan,  The   Spanish  — 

Troilus,  A  Burgundian  Copy  of  Chaucer's . . 


117-119 
94 

194 

182-184 
50-52 
260-261 

117-119 
232 

264 
176-177 

8-12 
109-111 
232 

154-155 
219-223 

32 

198-199 

188-193 
188-193 

188-193 
28-29 

223-226 
107-109 

119-124 
81-83 

196-197 
89-91 

107-109 
129-133 
160 
32 


Troilus,  Another  Contemporary  Allusion  in 
Chaucer's-  208-211 

Tupper,  Jr.,  Frederick,  The  Riddles  of  the 

Exeter  Book  (see  Strunk,  Jr.) 260-261 

Upham,  A.  H. :    Lee,   Sidney,  The   French 

Renaissance  in  England 177-182 

Venetian,  Pseudonyms  of  the  Nobles  of  the 

Broglio  in  —  Popular  Poetry 201-208 

Venice:  The  '  Maiden  City  ' 31 

Vos,  Bert  John,  Schiller's  Wilhelm  Tell 

(see  Cutting)  •  219-223 

Voss,  Ernst,  A  Summary  of  the  Protestant 

Faith  in  Middle  Low  German 70-73 

Vreeland,  W.  U.,  and  R.  Michaud,  Anthol- 
ogy of  French  Prose  and  Poetry  (see 
Weston)  91-93 


Wace,  Some  Proper  Names  in  Layamon's 
Brut  not  Represented  in  —  or  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth 

Ward's  History  of  English  Dramatic  Lit- 
erature, A  Note  on  — 

Warren,  F.  M.:  Stuart,  Donald  Clive,  Stage 
Decorations  in  France  in  the  Middle  Ages 

—  A  Latin  Counterpart  of  the  St.  Leger 
Strophe  

Wartburglieder,  The  Direction  of  Thought 
in  the  —  of  1817 

Watson,  Foster,  Dr.  Joseph  Webbe  and 
Language  Teaching  ( 1622) 

Webbe,  Dr.  Joseph  —  and  Language  Teach- 
ing (1622) 

Weeks,  Raymond,  Chevalerie  Vivien  (see 
Terracher )  

Wells,  John  Edwin,  Spelling  in  The  Owl  and 
The  Nightingale 

Weston,  Karl  E.:  Vreeland,  W.  U.,  and  R. 
Michaud,  Anthology  of  French  Prose  and 
Poetry  

Wiehr,  Joseph,  Hebbel  und  Ibsen  (see  von 
Klenze)  

Wilkins,  E.  H.,  The  Sonnet  "Dante  Ali- 
ghieri  son  .  .  ." 

Woerner,  Roman,  Henrik  Ibsen  (see  von 
Klenze )  

Wollaston,  George  Hyde,  The  Englishman 
in  Italy  (see  Livingston) 

Wood,  Francis  A.,  Etymological  Notes.... 

Wright,  Ernest  Hunter,  The  Authorship  of 

Timon  of  Athens  (see  demons) 

Young,  Karl,  A  Liturgical  Play  of  Joseph 
and  his  Brethren 


65-69 

31-32 

117-119 

239-240 

81-83 

40-46 

40-46 

28-29 

139-141 

91-93 
250-252 
137-139 
194-196 

86-89 
166-167 

89-91 
33-37 


January  t  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


9 


which  resulted  in  their  marriage  in  January,  1382. 
This  interpretation  having  been  accepted  by 
Chaucerian  scholars  almost  with  unanimity  since 
its  first  proposal,  Prof.  O.  F.  Emerson's  recent 
paper  on  The  Suitors  in  Chaucer's  Parlement  of 
Foules,"  advocating  an  important  modification  of 
the  accepted  theory,  is  one  of  unusual  interest. 
It  is  the  purpose  of  the  present  note  to  add  to  the 
discussion  a  certain  amount  of  evidence  that  will, 
I  think,  reinforce  Prof.  Emerson's  already  strong 
case. 

According  to  the  old  theory  of  the  allegory,  the 
three  male  eagles  of  the  Parliament  of  Fowls 
symbolise  Anne's  three  suitors,  Guillaume  de 
Baviere,  betrothed  to  her  in  1371,  Friedrich  of 
Meissen,  betrothed  to  her  in  1373,  and  Richard 
II,  who  became  a  suitor  for  her  in  1380.  Accord- 
ing to  the  new  theory  they  represent  Friedrich  of 
Meissen,  Charles  VI  of  France  (whom  Prof. 
Emerson  has  shown 3  to  have  been  a  candidate  for 
her  hand  in  1379  and  1380),  and  Richard.  No 
one  who  has  read  Prof.  Emerson's  article  can 
have,  it  seems  to  me,  the  smallest  doubt  that  the 
allegory  represents  Charles  in  the  guise  of  the 
third  eagle.  It  is  equally  certain  that  Richard  is 
the  first  eagle.  The  only  uncertainty  still  remain- 
ing relates  to  the  identity  of  the  second  eagle. 
Did  Chaucer  intend  him  to  represent  Guillaume 
de  Baviere,  or  Friedrich  of  Meissen  ? 

Prof.  Emerson  decides  without  hesitation  that 
the  second  eagle  represents  Friedrich  of  Meissen. 
His  chief  reason  for  the  decision  is  that  it  would 
be  "  a  strange  procedure  on  Chaucer's  part  to  in- 
troduce, as  a  rival  suitor  of  Richard,  one  whose 
betrothal  had  been  broken  off  as  early  as  1373,  at 
least  seven,  perhaps  nine  years,  before  the  time  of 
the  poem."  4  He  offers,  however,  no  evidence  of 

'Modem  Philology,  vin,  45-62,  July,  1910. 

^Modern  Philology,  vm,  51  ff. 

*Ibid.,  p.  47.  As  another  reason  for  doubting  that 
Guillaume  de  Baviere  is  represented  in  the  second  eagle, 
Prof.  Emerson  says:  "Others  may  have  wondered  what 
reason  we  have  to  suppose  that  Chaucer  even  knew  of  such 
an  engagement.  Such  news  would  surely  not  have  had 
international  circulation,  nor  would  it  have  been  freely 
communicated  to  those  interested  in  this  new  match  "  (p. 
47).  The  force  of  this  latter  argument  is  destroyed  by 
the  facts  presented  a  little  later  in  the  present  paper, 
showing  the  intimate  relation  in  which  Guillaume  de 
Bavifire's  father  stood  to  the  English  court. 


the  breaking  off  of  the  earlier  match.  The  be- 
trothal of  Anne  to  Friedrich  in  1373  is  of  course 
good  evidence  of  the  attitude  of  her  family  in  the 
matter,  but  what  was  the  attitude  of  the  Duke 
Albert  de  Baviere,  the  father  of  Guillaume?5 
Did  he  continue  to  assert  liis  right  to  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  old  marriage  contract,*  or  did  he 
acquiesce  in  its  abrogation  ? 

Upon   this   point   we    have    information   that 

5  The  identification  of  Anne's  first  suitor  with  Guillaume 
de  Baviere,  or  Wilhelm  von  Baiern-Holland,  rests  upon 
the  authority   of  Hofler's   Anna  von    Luxemburg,  Denk- 
schriflen  Wien.  Akad.  Phil.-Hist.   Cl.,  XX,  p.  128:    "  Sie 
[Anna]  wurde  im  Jahre  1371  dem  Herzoge  Wilhelm  von 
Baiern-Holland  als  Braut  zugesagt ;  der  Briiutigam  heira- 
tete  jedoch   1386  die  Prinzessin    Margaretha,    Tochter 
Philipp  dcs  Kiihnen,  Herzogs  von   Burgund."     Hofler 
has  been  followed  by  Tatlock,  Development  and  Chronology 
of  Chaucer's  Works,  p.  42,  and  Emerson,  1.  c.,  p.  47.     Pel- 
zel,  Lebensyeschichte  des  rb'mischen  und  bohmischen  Ko'nigs 
Wenceslaus,  p.  28,  says  :  ' '  Es  ward  auch  damals  zwischen 
dem  Sohne  des  Herzogs  Albrecht  von  Bayern  und  der 
kaiserlichen  Prinzessin  Anna  eine  Vermiihlung  verabre- 
det."     On   p.  33,  however,  Pelzel  says:  "Der  Kaiser, 
sein    [Wenzels]  Vater,  gerieth  damals  rait  dem   Hause 
Bayern  wegen  Brandenburg  in  Zwistigkeit.     Die  ersten 
Folgen  davon   waren,  dass  die  oben   erwiihnte   Heyrath 
zwischen  demjungen  Herzog  Albrecht,  und  Wenzels  Schwester 
Anna,   zuriickgieng,"    (italics   mine).     This    raises    the 
question,  which  of  Albert's  sons  was  Anna  betrothed  to? 
Guillaume,  born  1365,  was  the  eldest,  and  Albert  was  the 
second,  son  of  Albert  de  Baviere  (see  Allgemeine  deutsche 
Biographic,  I,  231  and  xxin,  90-92 ).  Pelzel  does  not  state 
the  source  of  his  information,  tho  a  note  on  the  sentence 
quoted  above  from  p.  28  says  :  "  Sie  warim  Jahr  1366.  den 
11.  May  geboren.     Beness  Minorita,  p.  47."  It  is  possible 
thatBeness,  who  is  not  accessible  tome,  mayhave  some  state- 
ment about  the  match.  This  author  is  contained  in  Monu- 
mentorum  Boh.,  Tom.  iv,  Pragae,  1779,  4to,  ed.  Cl.  Doh- 
nerus  (Pelzel,  Verzeichniss,  p.  xi).  Hofier  gives  no  refer- 
ence to  his  source,  but  refers  directly  after  to  Pelzel,  p.  33, 
as  authority  for  Anne's  betrothal  to  Friedrich.    The  iden- 
tity of  this  suitor  must  remain  uncertain  until  we  can  find 
Pelzel' s  source  for  this  detail.     It  seems,  a  priori,  very 
unlikely  that  the  emperor  should  have  betrothed  Anne, 
who  was  later  esteemed  such  a  desirable  match,  to  Albert's 
second  son.    We  should  certainly  expect  her  to  be  matched 
with  the  heir,  Guillaume.    In  view  of  this,  and  of  the  ease 
with  which  a  blunder  of  this  sort  might  have  got  into  Pel- 
zel's  text,  we  are  justified  in  holding  to  Hofler'sview  until 
further  evidence  is  produced. 

6  Cf.  for  example  the  case  of  Friedrich  of  Meissen,  whose 
engagement  "  was  never  formally  broken,  but  merely  set 
aside  by  Anne's  imperial  brother  "  (Emerson,  p.  50),  so 
that  Friedrich  still  claimed  rights  based  upon  the  mar- 
riage contract  of  1373  (Emerson,  pp.  49,  50). 


10 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


makes  it  clear  that  Albert  de  Baviere  had  no 
reason  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  annulment  of  the 
contract,  for  we  find  him  arranging  for  his  son 
shortly  after  1373,  a  marriage  that  was  at  least  as 
advantageous,  probably  more  so,  than  the  one 
that  had  been  abandoned.  On  February  6,  1374, 
Charles  V  of  France  charged  commissioners  to 
treat  in  his  name  in  regard  to  the  marriage  of 
Marie  his  daughter  with  Guillaume  the  eldest  son 
of  the  Duke  Albert  de  Baviere. T  On  February 
10,  Albert  empowered  five  commissioners  to  draw 
up  a  treaty  of  marriage.8  This  treaty  was  drawn 
up  by  the  commissioners,  submitted  by  them  to 
Charles  and  Albert  on  March  3,  1374,9  and 
confirmed  by  Charles  on  March  16,  1375.10  The 
new  marriage  contract  would,  of  course,  have 
completely  annulled  any  right  Guillaume  might 
have  retained  to  the  hand  of  Anne,  even  if  the 
match  had  been  broken  off  by  Anne's  father 
without  the  consent  of  Albert.  It  would  there- 
fore have  been  impossible  for  Chaucer  in  the 
Parliament  of  Fowls  to  represent  Guillaume  as  one 
of  Anne's  suitors  ;  a  rival  of  Charles  VI,  his 
brother-in-law  elect.  That  the  marriage  of 
Guillaume  de  Baviere  and  Marie  de  France  did 
not  take  place  but  was  prevented  by  the  death  of 
Marie  in  1377, u  does  not  affect  the  situation. 

Here  the  question  may  perhaps  be  raised,  how 
much  of  this  information  is  likely  to  have  been  in 
the  possession  of  Chaucer  and  the  English  court  ? 
Considering  the  fact  that  Chaucer  himself  had 
been  commissioned  to  treat  in  regard  to  a  marriage 
between  Richard  II  and  one  of  the  daughters  of 
Charles  V,"  we  must  say  if  Chaucer  ever  had 
any  information,  he  certainly  knew  that  the 
princess  Marie  had  been  betrothed  to  Guillaume 
de  Baviere.  If  he  had  not  had  such  information, 
he  would  not  have  been  competent  to  perform  the 
commission  on  which  he  was  sent.  And  altogether 
apart  from  this  special  interest  that  Chaucer  and 
the  English  court  had  in  the  daughters  of  Charles 

7  Devillers,  Cartulaire  des  comtes  de  Hainaut,  Bruxelles, 
Acade"mie  Royale  des  Sciences,  1881,  vi,  pt.  1,  393. 

*Ibid.  9Ibid.  l°Ibid.,  p.  395. 

11  Histoirc  genealogique  de  la  maison  de  France,  P.  1547; 
I,  616. 

"  Life-records  of  Chaucer,  Chaucer  Soc.,  Pt.  4,  Doc.  143, 
p.  230  :  "  causa  locucionis  habite  de  nmritagio  inter  ipsum 
Dominum  Regem  nunc  et  filiam  eiusdem  aduersarij  sui 
Francie." 


V  between  1377  and  1380,  Albert  de  Baviere  had 
for  a  long  time  been  well-known  to  them,  for 
he  was  the  son  of  Queen  Philippa's  sister, 
Margaret  of  Hainaut.  Of  his  visit  to  England 
in  1367,  Froissart  speaks  as  follows  : 

En  ce  meysme  temps  passa  li  dus  Aubiers  ad  ce  dont 
baus  de  Haynnau,  de  Hollandeset  de  Zellandes,  et  vint  en 
Engleterre  en  grant  arroy  de  chevaliers  et  d'escuiers  de 
son  pays,  pour  veoir  le  roy  englSs,  son  oncle,  et  madame 
la  royne  Phelippe,  sa  tante,  et  ses  chiers  cousins,  leurs 
enfants.  Si  fu  des  dessus  dis  bien  conjoi's  et  festye"s  &, 
Londres  et  ou  castiel  de  Windesore,  et  quant  il  eut  la  este 
xv  jours,  il  s'en  parti  et  prist  congiet  au  roy  et  &  le  royne, 
qui  li  donnercnt  pluisseurs  biaux  jeuiaux,  et  &  ses  cheva- 
liers ossi.  Si  repassa  li  dis  dus  Aubers  la  mer  a  Douvres, 
et  arriva  a  Callais,  et  revint  arriere  au  Kesnoy  en  Hayn- 
nau, dont  il  estoit  premierement  partis,  deviers  madame 
Marguerite,  la  ducoise  sa  femme.18 

At  a  later  time,  after  the  death  of  Edward  III, 
there  was  talk  in  England  of  marrying  Richard 
to  a  daughter  of  Albert  de  Baviere,  says  Frois- 
sart : 

En  celle  saison  eut  grans  consaulx  en  Engletierre  des 
oucles  dou  roy,  des  prdlas  et  des  barons  dou  pai's  pour  le  jone 
roy  Eichart  d' Engletierre  maryer,  et  euissent  volentiers  li 
Engles  veu  que  il  se  fuist  marye's  en  Haynau  pour  1'amour 
de  la  bonne  royne  Phelippe  leur  dame,  qui  leur  fu  si 
bonne,  si  large  et  si  honnerable,  qui  avoit  este*  de  Hayn- 
nau ;  mais  li  dus  Aubiers  en  che  tamps  n' avoit  nulle  fille 
en  point  pour  marier.14 

Later  in  the  reign  of  Richard,  Guillaume  de 
Baviere  also  became  a  conspicuous  figure  in 
England,  for  in  1384  he  was  sought  by  John  of 
Gaunt  as  a  husband  for  his  daughter  Philippa,15 
and  when  he  visited  England  in  1391,  dis- 
tinguished himself  by  his  jousting,  and  received 
the  Order  of  the  Garter.16 

These  facts  make  it  evident  that  Chaucer  in 

13  Oeuvres  de  Froissa.rt,  ed.  Kervyn  de  Lettenhove ; 
Chroniques,  vu,  243,  244  ;  for  date  see  editor's  note,  p.  521, 

"Jitd.,  ix,  212. 

15 Ibid.,  x,  307  :  veoit-elle  [Jehane  de  Braibant]  le  due 
Aubert,  bail  de  Haynnau,  et  la  ducoise  sa  femme  avoir 
des  biaux  enfans,  dont  il  y  en  avoit  jusques  a  deus  fils  et 
filles  tous  inariavles,  et  entendoit  que  li  dus  de  Lancastre 
rendoit  et  mettoit  grant  paine  &  ce  que  Philippe  sa  fille, 
que  il  ot  de  la  bonne  ducoise  Blance,  sa  premiere  femme, 
fu  marie  a  1'ainsne"  fil  dou  due  Aubert  qui  par  droit  devoit 
estre  hiretiers  de  la  conte*  de  Haynnau,  de  Hollandes  et  de 
Zellandes. 

16 Ibid.,  xiv,  255-269  ;  for  date  see  Nicholas,  Orders  of 
British  Knighthood,  L.  1842,  n,  p.  liii,  Append. 


January,   1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


11 


1380  or  1381  could  not  have  intended  to  represent 
Guillaume  de  Baviere  as  a  suitor  for  the  hand  of 
Anne.  If  we  had  still  any  doubt  upon  the  point, 
that  doubt  would  be  resolved  by  the  fact  that  on 
her  journey  from  Bohemia  to  England  at  the  end 
of  the  year  1381,  to  be  married  to  Richard,  Anne 
was  for  three  or  four  days  the  guest  of  Albert  and 
his  duchess  at  Ath."  We  could  have  no  better 
evidence  of  the  friendly  feeling  that  existed 
between  the  families  of  Guillaume  and  Anne. 

Since  the  time  of  Tyrwhitt  Chaucerian  scholars 
have  been  unanimous  in  their  opinion  that  the 
composition  of  the  Parliament  of  Fowls  was  in 
some  way  related  to  a  royal  marriage  or  some 
other  definite  occasion  of  that  nature.  Ten  Brink 
says  : 

Das  parlament  der  vogel  triigt  alle  merkmale  eines 
gelegenheitsgedichts, 18 

tho  he  does  not  state  precisely  what  these  ' '  merk- 
male" are,  and  had  perhaps  never  actually  form- 
ulated them.  Now,  apart  from  the  undefined 
impression  we  all  have  that  this  poem  is  the  kind 
of  thing  that  is  likely  to  contain  a  double  mean- 
ing, does  the  Parliament  of  Fowls  contain  any 
specific  indication  that  Chaucer  is  addressing  his 
work  to  a  particular  individual  in  the  hope  of 
giving  pleasure  and  receiving  a  reward  ?  I  think 
it  does. 

The  beginning  of  the  Parliament  of  Fowls  tells 
us,  it  will  be  remembered,  how  Chaucer's  reading 
provided  him  with  the  subject  matter  of  his  poem. 
After  spending  the  day  reading  Scipio's  Dream  he 
fell  asleep.  In  a  vision  Scipio  Africanus  appeared 
to  him  and  said  that  as  a  reward  for  the  attention 
Chaucer  had  given  to  his  old  book  he  would  give 
him  matter  to  write  about. 

"  Devillers,  v,  657,  658  :— 

24  novembre. — ''Donne'es  &  Mons  en  Haynnau,  le  vinte- 
quatreisrae  jour  doumois  et  1'andessusdit  (novembre,  1'an 
quatrevins  et  un)."  Mandement  du  due  Albert  a  Lam- 
bert de  Lobbes,  pour  le  payement  de  ses  defenses  et  de 
celles  de  la  duchesse  et  de  leur  hotel  faites  a  Ath,  a  la 
venue  de  la  reine  d'Angleterre  du  (20)  au  samedi  (23) 
novembre,  au  diner. 

24  novembre. — Mandement  du  due  Albert  &  Thierri  de 
Presiel,  chatelain  d'Ath,  pour  le  payement  "des  frais  et 
hostages  de  le  roine  d' Engletiere,  de  ses  gens  et  de  leurs 
chevauls,  fais  a  Ath  despuis  le  merkedi  au  disner  xxe  jour 
dou  niois  de  novembre,  1'an  quatre-vins  et  un,  jusquez  au 
venredi  apres  enssuivant." 

18  Chaucer  Studien,  127. 


thou  hast  thee  so  wel  born 
In  loking  of  myn  olde  book  to-torn, 
Of  which  Macrobie  roghte  nat  a  lyte, 
That  somdel  of  thy  labour  wolde  I  quyte  ! 19 

says  Scipio.  And  a  little  later,  when  he  has 
brought  Chaucer  to  the  gate  of  the  Garden  of 
Love,  he  says  : 

And  if  thou  haddest  cunning  for  t'endyte, 
I  shal  thee  shewen  mater  of  to  wryte.20 

The  concluding  stanza  of  the  poem  refers  back 
unmistakably  to  this  introduction  : 

And  with  the  showting,  whan  hir  song  was  do, 

That  foules  maden  at  hir  flight  a-way, 

I  wook,  and  other  bokes  took  me  to 

To  rede  upon,  and  yet  I  rede  alway  ; 

I  hope,  y-wis,  to  rede  so  som  day 

That  I  shal  mete  som  thing  for  to  fare 

The  bet ;  and  thus  to  rede  I  nil  not  spare. 

Is  it  not  fair  to  paraphrase  the  last  five  lines  of 
this  stanza  as  follows  ?  "I  have  always  been, 
and  shall  continue  to  be,  a  great  reader.  This 
very  dream  I  have  been  telling  you  about  came  to 
me  because  of  a  book  I  read.  I  hope  it  may 
some  day  or  other  be  my  good  fortune  to  read  a 
book  that  will  cause  me  to  have  a  dream  that  will 
result  in  something  that  will  be  to  my  advantage." 
According  to  this  interpretation  of  the  lines, 
Chaucer  here  recommends  himself  to  the  King, 
and  in  a  delicate  and  characteristic  manner 
expresses  his  hope  for  some  mark  of  royal  favor." 

19  LI.  109-112.  *>L1.  167,168. 

11  This  interpretation,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  find, 
has  never  before  been  brought  into  the  discussion  of  the 
poem.  Koch  discusses  the  stanza  both  in  Englische  Stu- 
dien and  in  Essays  on  Chaucer.  Exactly  what  his  inter- 
pretation was  is  by  no  means  clear,  but  it  was  at  all  events 
something  quite  different  from  that  presented  in  the  pre- 
sent paper.  For  facility  of  comparison  I  give  here  the 
comments  he  makes  upon  the  passage. 

Referring  to  the  Ten  Brink's  characterisation  of  the 
Parliament  of  Fowls  as  a  "gelegenheitsgedicht,"  he  says  : 
Doch  betrachten  wir  die  ofters  erwiihnte  schlussstrophe, 
so  konnen  wir  es  nur  in  dem  sinne  als  ein  solches  bezeich- 
nen,  als  ein  bestimmter  iiusserer  anla&s  den  dichter  zur 
composition  desselben  angeregt  hat.  Es  kann  nicht  so 
aufgefasst  werden,  als  ob  Chaucer  es  auf  bestellung  einer 
hochgestellten  personlichkeit  oder  als  dedication  an  eine 
solche  zur  feier  einer  brautwerbung  gefertigt  habe,  woran 
zu  denken  man  wohl  durch  den  zu  algemein  gehaltenen 
ausdruck"  gelegenheitsgedicht"  verfiihrt  wiire.  Denn  erst- 
lich  ist  in  dieser  beziehung  das  werkchen  unvollendet :  es 


12 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Fo/.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


If  this  interpretation  be  accepted  it  offers  a  certain 
amount  of  independent  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  an  allegory,  for  such  a  dedication  would  very 
properly  lead  one  to  suspect,  on  mere  a  priori 
grounds,  that  the  poem  carried  a  double  meaning. 
When,  in  addition  to  this  a  priori  evidence,  we 
have  very  strong  a  posteriori  evidence,  namely, 
an  explanation  of  the  allegory  that  accords 
admirably  with  the  details  of  the  poem,  with  the 
time  at  which,  on  other  grounds,  it  is  likely  to 
have  been  composed,  and  with  the  known  facts  of 
Chaucer's  relations  with  Richard  II  and  the 
court,  we  may  justly  say  that  Koch's  theory  as 
modified  by  Prof.  Emerson  rests  upon  grounds  of 
proof  that  come  little  short  of  amounting  to  a 
demonstration. 

SAMUEL  MOORE. 

Harvard  University. 


THE  ALLEGORY  IN  LYLY'S  ENDIM10N. 

It  is  probable  that  most  readers  of  Professor 
Feuillerat's  splendid  new  book  on  John  Lyly 
(Cambridge  University  Press,  1910)  will  feel 
genuine  disappointment  and  vexation  when  they 
come  to  the  chapter  in  which  he  treats  the  play  of 
Endimion  (Premiere  Partie  vn,  pp.  141-190). 
That  a  critic  so  deeply  learned  and  so  charming 
in  expression  should  lend  the  weight  of  his  deserved 

fehlt  eine  befriedigende  antwort  der  umworbenen  schonen, 
wenn  rnau  auch  eine  solche  aus  der  haltungdes  ganzen  im 
voraus  eutnehmen  konnte.  Zweitens  widersprechen  einer 
solchen  auffassung  die  oben  citirten  worte  :  "  I  rede  alway 
.  .  .  and  hope  ...  I  shal  mete  sornmethyng  for  to  fare  the 
bet .  .  .,"  worte,  die  unmoglich  an  das  ende  eines  hoch- 
zeitscartnen  gepasst  hiitten."  ( Enylische  Studien,  I,  287.) 
In  the  English  version  of  the  essay  Koch  is  a  little  more 
definite.  His  chief  dicta,  omitting  what  is  in  substance 
only  what  has  just  been  quoted  from  his  first  version  of  the 
essay,  are  these:  "But  if  we  look  at  the  last  stanza  [of 
the  P.  of  F.~\  we  see  that  Chaucer  was  searching  for  a  new 
subject  to  work  on"  (Essays  on  Chaucer,  Chaucer  Society, 
Pt.  iv,  p.  402).  "  Supposing  the  House  of  Fame  to  be  the 
'  comedy '  our  poet  wished  to  write,  the  Parlament  of 
Foules  would  be  a  pi-elude  of  it,  a  kind  of  preparation  for 
it.  'I  hope,'  he  says,  '  I  shal  mete  somethyng  for  to  fare 
the  bet'  (ibid.,  pp.  403,404).  And  finally  :  '  .  .  .  consult- 
ing the  last  stanza,  .  .  .  the  concluding  words  of  which 
would  have  been  no  compliment  to  the  dedicatee,  we  must 
deny  any  relation  of  this  sort '  "  (ibid.,  p.  405). 


authority  to  the  fantastic  interpretation  there  pro- 
mulgated of  the  allegory  in  the  play  seems  not  only 
a  misfortune  to  the  many  who  will  gain  pleasure 
from  his  volume,  but  a  veritable  obstruction  to 
the  progress  of  the  scientific  scholarship  which  he 
elsewhere  advances  so  notably. 

During  the  last  twenty  years  several  hundreds 
of  pages  have  been  filled  with  explanations  of  the 
personal  symbolism  in  Endimion,  all  mutually  an- 
tagonistic and,  it  seems  to  me,  fatally  super-subtle. 
During  these  years,  Lyly  criticism  has  run  wild 
through  the  same  chaos  of  unbased  and  over- 
refined  conjecture  which  made  up  much  of  the 
Shakespeare  criticism  of  the  eighteenth  century  ; 
till  it  is  hardly  surprising  that  several  writers — 
notably  the  late  Professor  Morley  and  Mr.  Percy 
W.  Long — have  closed  their  eyes  in  disgust  upon 
the  whole  problem  and  declined  to  admit  that  any 
personal  allegory  exists.  Professor  Feuillerat's 
interpretation,  supplanting  those  of  Halpin,  of 
Professor  Baker,  and  of  Mr.  Bond,  is  the  most 
ingeniously  worked  out  and  the  most  eloquently 
delivered  of  all  ;  equally,  it  is  the  most  astound- 
ing and  the  one  most  contradictory  of  what  we 
know  or  can  reasonably  infer  concerning  the  pur- 
pose and  nature  of  the  play. 

The  Reverend  N.  J.  Halpin  first  suggested,  in 
1843,  that  Endimion  is  an  allegory  of  court  life, 
portraying  fashionable  characters  of  the  day,  of 
whom  the  most  important  are  Queen  Elizabeth 
(Cynthia),  the  Earl  of  Leicester  (Endimion),  and 
Leicester's  two  living  wives,  Lady  Sheffield  (Tel- 
lus)  and  Lady  Essex  (Floscula).  In  1894,  Pro- 
fessor Baker  presented  a  somewhat  different  and 
more  ambitious  explanation,  according  to  which 
the  piece  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  play  of  political 
import,  written  in  1579  in  direct  championship  of 
the  Earl  of  Leicester.  In  1902,  Mr.  Bond,  the 
editor  of  Lyly,  argued  at  large  in  favor  of  '  widen- 
ing the  scope  '  of  the  allegory,  and  did  widen  it  to 
the  extent  of  introducing  as  the  prototype  of  Tellus 
the  personage  next  in  historic  conspicuousness  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  herself — Mary  Queen  of  Scots. 
And  now  M.  Feuillerat  stretches  the  allegory  yet 
farther,  till,  retaining  Bond's  identification  of 
Tellus  with  Mary,  he  accomplishes  the  amazing 
result  of  pronouncing  Endimion — the  lover  who 
sways  between  Cynthia  and  Tellus — no  less  a 
person  than  the  third  political  dignitary  of  the 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


13 


age,  James  of  Scotland,  Mary's  son.  Is  not  this 
continuous  '  widening  of  the  allegory '  to  include 
more  and  more  of  the  figures  whose  names  are 
writ  largest  in  the  text-books  of  history — when 
taken  in  connexion  with  the  extreme  ease  with 
which  each  hypothesis  is  overthrown  by  the  advo- 
cates of  the  rest — merely  a  proof  that  such  sober 
probabilities  as  really  exist  are  being  rapidly 
dragged  out  into  elemental  chaos?  Surely,  the 
time  has  come  to  take  stock  of  our  real  knowledge 
of  Lyly's  allegorical  procedure — to  set  limits  to 
imaginative  speculation,  acknowledging  the  deadly 
danger  of  argument  from  vague  parallels — and  to 
put  up  before  the  paths  which  have  been  proved 
illusory  the  warning  so  frequent  and  necessary  in 
the  field  of  Shakespeare  investigation  :  '  That  way 
madness  lies. ' 

The  reasons  which  Mr.  Bond  has  offered  for  his 
alteration  of  Halpin's  main  theory  are  entirely 
negligible  (see  Lyly,  ed.  -Bond,  in,  pp.  88-90) ; 
those  which  Professor  Feuillerat  now  urges  in  sup- 
port of  his  far  more  sweeping  change  appear  to 
me  most  inadmissible.  They  are  just  four  : 

1.  Lyly  would  not  have  dared,  in  dramatizing 
the   affair  between   Leicester  and  Elizabeth,   to 
portray  on  the  stage  the  private  emotions  of  the 
Queen  (pp.  148-149). 

2.  Lyly's  purpose  in  treating  this  subject  could 
only  have  been  the  gaining  of  Leicester's  favor, 
and  Leicester  was  the  open  enemy  of  Lyly's  pa- 
trons, Burleigh  and  Oxford  (pp.  149,  150). 

3.  Lyly  presents  Endimion  as  young  and  as 
having  led  a  solitary  life  for  seven  years  from 
love  of  Cynthia,  whereas  we  know  the  true  Lei- 
cester to  have  been  about  fifty  and  a  notorious 
gallant  (pp.  151,  152). 

4.  The  incidents  of  the  play  do  not  agree  in 
detail  with  the  actual  facts  (pp.  152-154). 

When  Professor  Feuillerat  asks,  with  reference 
to  his  first  point  (p.  148)  :  '  Comment  peut-on  ad- 
mettre  qu'un  dramatiste  ait  ete  assez  audacieux 
pour  mettre  a  la  scene  les  sentiments  les  plus  in- 
times,  les  plus  secrets  de  la  reine  ?  '  is  he  not  put- 
ting a  wholly  pointless  question  ?  Instead  of  being 
in  any  sense  an  expose  of  the  Queen's  '  most  secret 
sentiments,'  the  play  is  an  extravagantly  adulatory 
and  untruthful  denial  of  a  scandal  everywhere 
current ;  and  when  Professor  Feuillerat  tells  us 


that  the  Queen  and  the  Master  of  the  Revels 
would  have  treated  such  a  bit  of  coarse  flattery 
about  fashionable  gossip  many  years  old  with 
less  indulgence  than  the  minutely  accurate  pre- 
sentation of  a  contemporary  diplomatic  intrigue, 
which  he  discerns,  he  involves  himself  in  an  as- 
sumption certainly  not  justified  either  by  our 
knowledge  of  Elizabeth's  character  or  by  the 
lese  majesty  principles  of  the  day. 

The  second  objection  seems  to  arise  from  a  mis- 
conception of  the  object  of  the  play.  Surely, 
Endimion  must  not  be  read  as  a  kind  of  analogue 
to  Hernani  —  the  dramatic  mouthpiece  of  one 
court  party  against  another.  The  only  ulterior 
purpose  which  can  be  safely  predicated  of  this 
play  or  of  the  other  fashionable  comedies  of  the 
time  is  direct  flattery  of  Elizabeth  ;  and  the  fact 
that  Cynthia's  lover  is  here  endowed  with  the 
indispensable  minimum  of  constancy,  amiability, 
and  beauty  no  more  indicates  that  Lyly  was  in 
collusion  with  the  original  of  his  portrait  than 
does  the  parallel  treatment  of  Phao  in  Sapho  and 
Phao  prove  a  desire  in  Lyly  to  advance  the  for- 
tunes of  the  departed  and  hopeless  Alenyon. 
Thus,  Professor  Baker's  idea  that  the  play  must 
have  been  written  at  the  time  when  it  would  have 
done  Leicester  the  most  good  and  Professor  Feuil- 
lerat's  that  it  cannot  refer  to  Leicester  at  all 
because  Lyly  was  not  a  personal  adherent  of  the 
latter  seem  to  me  equally  unfounded. 

Professor  Feuillerat' s  last  two  objections,  which 
together  make  but  a  single  point,  constitute  a  clear 
case  of  the  'hobbling  of  Pegasus,'  so  strongly  con- 
demned by  Professor  Morley.  How  could  Lyly 
present  Endimion  as  anything  but  young  and 
beautiful,  whether  he  thought  of  him  as  the 
Greek  shepherd  or  as  the  court  favorite  and  long 
acknowledged  lover  of  the  Queen,  with  whom 
Leicester  was  in  point  of  age  a  precise  contem- 
porary ?  And  as  regards  Endimion' s  occasional 
avowals  of  his  solitary  devotion  to  Cynthia,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how,  in  the  face  of  his  relations  to 
Tellus,  he  can  be  held  unduly  constant  or  inno- 
cent. In  any  case,  the  poetic  exaltation  of  Cyn- 
thia's lover  violates  fact  far  less  than  that  be- 
stowed on  Sapho' s  lover  in  the  parallel  play, 
where  the  identification  of  Phao  is  unquestioned. 
I  am  aware  of  no  indication  that  Mr.  Bond's 
imaginative  explanation  of  the  allegory  in  Endi- 


14 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


mion  has  been  anywhere  seriously  accepted  ;  and 
the  bolder  theory  just  promulgated  by  Professor 
Feuillerat  seems  still  less  likely  to  make  its  way. 
In  anticipation  of  further  divergent  attempts  at 
purely  speculative  solution  of  a  question  which 
mere  speculation  will  never  be  able  to  solve,  are 
we  not  justified  in  laying  down  the  following 
preliminary  theses,  all  apparently  well  founded  in 
our  present  knowledge  of  Lyly's  dramatic  prac- 
tice? 

1.  That  the  main  object  of  his  courtly  allegor- 
ical plays,  apart  from  the  motive  of  pure  art — and 
presumably  the   sole   object,    in   the   absence   of 
proof  to  the  contrary — was  the  flattery  of  Queen 
Elizabeth. 

2.  That  the  character  of  his  allegory  was  per- 
sonal and  sentimental,   rather   than    diplomatic. 
Midas,  a  personal  satire  on  Philip  II' s  greed  and 
folly,  is  no  exception  to  this  rule. 

3.  That  Lyly  dealt  in  his  allegorical  plays  only 
with   faita   accomplis,    gracefully   eulogizing   the 
Queen  upon  the  outcome  of  some  incident  safely 
past,  and  never  attempting  to  influence  her  to 
specific   action    or   to   strengthen   one   particular 
party  in  a  controversy  as  yet  undetermined. 

4.  That  the  deliberate,   continuous  symbolism 
in  these  plays  probably  extends  only  to  a  very  few 
of  the  main  characters,     That  Lyly  should  have 
put  into  plays  so  light,  and  so  clearly  intended  for 
oral  representation  rather  than  careful  reading,  an 
intricate  and  detailed  allegory  such  as  still  puzzles 
students    of    the    Faery    Queene   would    appear 
unreasonable,    and  is  certainly  suggested  by  no 
evidence. 

5.  That  the  author's  purpose  was  certainly  not 
to  give  an  accurate  transcript  of  the  incidents  he 
treated.     Such  procedure  would  have  made  the 
plays  either  dull  or  impolitic,  or  both.     Kather, 
we  have  to  do  in  each  case  with  a  tissue  of  harm- 
lessly imaginary  pictures  shot  through  with  ideal- 
ized references  to  such  actual  happenings  as  the 
poet  might  feel  to  be  wholly  free  from  offence  to 
his  royal  auditress. 

For  each  of  the  principles  above  there  exists 
very  substantial  prima  facie  evidence,  and  we 
have  every  right  to  insist  that  critics  who  in 
future  disregard  them  take  upon  themselves  a 
burden  of  proof  far  heavier  than  either  Mr.  Bond 
or  Professor  Feuillerat  has  been  willing  to  assume. 


I  believe  that  most  of  the  students  of  Lyly  who 
may  be  impelled  by  Professor  Feuillerat' s  valuable 
and  interesting  book  to  a  thorough  reconsideration 
of  the  allegorical  element  in  Endimion  will  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  little  progress  has  been 
made  since  Halpin's  day  toward  the  establishment 
of  the  real  truth  of  the  matter.  The  sane  inter- 
pretation seems  still  the  obvious  one,  which 
Halpin  pointed  out,  that  this  play  agrees  with 
Sapho  and  Phao  in  being  a  highly  poetic  and 
idealized  version,  flattering  to  Elizabeth,  of  a 
past  love  adventure,  where  Cynthia  stands  for 
the  Queen,  Endimion  for  Leicester,  and  Tellus 
for  Leicester's  wife — rather  the  third  wife,  Lettice 
Countess  of  Essex,  as  Mr.  Baker  suggests,  and  as 
Mr.  Halpin  would  probably  have  willingly 
granted,  than  his  second  wife,  Lady  Sheffield. 
In  the  years  just  before  and  after  1579,  this 
affair  had  been  very  acute  ;  but  in  1585-6,  when 
Endimion  seems  to  have  been  written,  the  crisis 
was  well  past.  Leicester  had  apparently  abjured 
his  exorbitant  ambition  for  the  Queen's  personal 
favor,  Elizabeth's  anger  at  his  secret  marriage 
had  cooled,  and  the  earl  was  at  the  moment 
engaged  in  military  service  in  the  Low  Countries. 

There  seems,  then,  good  cause  to  regard  Endimion 
as  a  loose,  but  infinitely  tactful  and  graceful 
sketch  of  the  relations  of  Elizabeth  and  Leicester 
previous  to  1585.  Leicester's  presumptuous  pur- 
suit of  the  celestial  beauty,  and  his  juggling 
between  Tellus  and  Cynthia,  are  punished  by  that 
mistrust  on  the  part  of  the  sovereign  which 
actually  existed  strongly  for  several  years  after 
1579,  and  to  which  the  play  alludes  repeatedly 
(Endimion,  ed.  Bond,  i.  iv,  40-44  ;  n.  i,  27- 
30  ;  n.  iii,  2,  3  ;  iv.  i,  15,  16  ;  iv.  iii,  79-81). 
The  consequences  are  represented  in  the  sleep  into 
which  Endimion  falls,  thus  losing  the  youthful 
beauty  naturally  belonging  to  him  as  Elizabeth's 
avowed  lover,  and  lying  dead  (i.  e.,  disgraced  at 
court)  till  his  overweening  arrogance  has  been 
chastened,  when  the  magnanimity  of  Eumeuides 
and  the  lofty  compassion  of  Cynthia  restore  him 
to  purely  political  and  impersonal  favor.  Mean- 
time, Cynthia  is,  of  course,  presented — as  the 
Queen  would  demand  to  appear,  and  as  Shakes- 
peare also  paints  her — as  continuing  through  the 
play  'in  maiden  meditation  fancy-free,'  entirely 
unaware  of  the  overwhelming  adoration  she  has 
inspired  in  sublunary  breasts. 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


15 


Three  additional  considerations,  of  no  very 
great  individual  consequence,  bear  out  the  inter- 
pretation of  Endimion  just  given  ;  they  appear  so 
obvious  that  it  is  strange  to  find  them  hitherto 
overlooked  : 

1.  'Tellus' — not  quite  the  most  natural  an- 
tonym to   'Cynthia' — is  an  anagram  of  Lettice 
(Lletus),  the  third  wife  of  Leicester  and  the  im- 
mediate cause  of  his  disgrace  with  Elizabeth  in 
1579.     This  fact,  which  may,  of  course,  be  mere 
accident,  is  given  for  what  it  may  be  worth. 

2.  The  notes  of  time  in  the  play  are  patently 
fanciful  and  inconsequent.    The  forty  years'  sleep 
of  Endimion  (v.  i,  50)  does  not  correspond  with 
any  alteration  in  the  other  mortal  figures  :  it  is 
merely  emblematic  of  Leicester's  actual  change 
during  the  period  1579-1586  from  the  youthful 
part  of  the  Queen's  lover  to  the  elderly  role  of 
military  general  and  political  adviser.     The  only 
reference  to  time  to  which  specific  application  can 
reasonably  be  attributed  is  that  contained  in  Endi- 
mion's  lamentation  over  Cynthia's  disfavor  (u. 
i,  14-22):  'Remember  my  solitarie  life,  almost 
these  seauen  yeeres  :  whom  haue  I  entertained  but 
mine  owne  thoughts,    and  thy   vertues  ?     What 
companie  haue  I  vsed  but  contemplation  ?   Whom 
haue  I  wondred  at  but  thee  ?     Nay  whom  haue  I 
not  contemned,  for  thee  ?     Haue  I  not  crept  to 
those  on  whom  I  might  haue  trodden,  onelie  be- 
cause thou  didst  shine   vpon  them?     Haue  not 
iniuries  beene  sweet  to  mee,  if  thou  vouchsafedst 
I  should   beare  them  ?     Haue   I   not  spent  my 
golden  yeeres  in  hopes,  waxing  old  with  wishing 
nothing  but  thy  loue.'     It  is  worth  noting  that 
'  almost .  .  seauen  yeeres '  is  the  precise  interval 
between  the  affair  of  1579  and  the  acting  of  the 
play  (Feb.  2,  1586  ?),  and  the  text  describes  very 
well  Leicester's  difficult  position  during  that  pe- 
riod.    The  spending  of  golden  years  in  hopes  and 
the  waxing  old  are  quite  out  of  keeping  with  the 
imaginary    youthful    Endimion,    and    must,   one 
would  suppose,  have  topical  significance. 

3.  It  is  very  uncritical  to  read  in  the  play  a 
compliment  to  the  original  of  Endimion.     Surely, 
the  reverse  is  true.    For  obvious  reasons,  dramatic 
and  politic,  Lyly  could  not  make  his  titular  hero 
positively  odious  ;    but  the  inferences  from  Eudi- 
mion's  relations  to  Cynthia  and  Tellus,  his  foolish 
ambition,   deserved  punishment,  and  final  luke- 


warm pardon  are  by  no  means  flattering  to  that 
character.  The  ideal  male  figure  in  the  play  is, 
evidently,  not  Endimion  but  Eumenides  ;  and  if 
one  feels  confidence  to  proceed  in  one's  identifica- 
tion beyond  the  three  most  important  persons,  the 
next  natural  step  will  probably  be  to  recognize 
Lyly' s  patron  Burleigh,  only  five  years  senior  to 
Leicester  and  the  Queen,  in  Eumenides,  the  faith- 
ful servant  and  counsellor  of  Cynthia,  who  repri- 
mands the  aspiring  Endimion,  and  afterward  by 
his  generosity  makes  possible  the  latter' s  recon- 
ciliation with  his  mistress. 

Interpret  the  allegory  as  we  may — and  it  seems 
clear  to  me  that  only  one  reasonable  interpretation 
so  far  exists — the  general  purport  of  Endimion 
remains  certain.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
Cynthia,  the  play  contrasts  selfish  and  unselfish 
service  in  Endimion  and  Eumenides.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  Endimion,  it  is  the  old  story  of 
the  opposition  between  earthly  and  ideal  love — 
the  theme  suggested  by  the  opening  line  of 
Shakespeare's  144th  sonnet,  'Two  loves  I  have  of 
comfort  and  despair.' 

This  is  undoubtedly  what  the  poet  saw  in  his 
play  and  what  he  expected  his  audience  to  see. 
Any  attempt  to  explain  the  piece  as  an  elaborate 
parable,  not  reflecting  true  love  or  real  personal 
service,  but  mystically  enshrouding  the  great 
political  and  diplomatic  events  of  the  age,  in- 
volves a  complete  distortion.  It  results  from 
viewing  sixteenth  century  life  through  the  in- 
verted perspective  of  political  history,  and  indi- 
cates a  failure  to  apprehend  the  actual  range  of 
interest  of  Lyly' s  local,  courtly  public. 

C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE. 

Yah  University. 


THE   CURSOR  MUNDI  AND 
"SOUTHERN  PASSION.' 


THE 


In  the  Cotton  MS.  of  the  Cursor  Mundi  a  later 
hand  (xv  century)  has  inserted  two  passages  of 
considerable  length,  the  first  treating  of  the  suf- 
ferings of  Christ  on  the  Cross,  and  the  second  of 
the  Resurrection.  The  description  of  the  MS.  given 
by  Dr.  Hupe l  makes  it  clear  that  the  interpolated 

1  Cursor  Mundi,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  pp.  124*-125*. 


16 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


passages  were  added  after  the  MS.  had  been  com- 
pleted. The  interpolator,  wishing  to  attach  the 
story  of  the  Resurrection  at  a  point  half-way  down 
the  second  column  of  fol.  95b,  erased  the  remain- 
der of  the  column  in  order  to  make  room  for  the 
addition,  and  afterwards  copied  the  erased  lines 
(17,289-316)  at  the  end  of  col.  2,  fol.  98b. 

The  story  of  the  Resurrection  thus  inserted  in 
the  Cotton  MS.  was  taken,  as  Horstmann 2  has 
already  noted,  from  the  ' '  Southern  Passion. ' '  I 
wish  now  to  point  out  that  the  other  inserted  pas- 
sage, on  the  Sufferings  on  the  Cross,  was  borrowed 
from  the  same  source.  This  "Southern  Passion," 
which  is  included  in  a  number  of  the  MSS.  of  the 
South  English  Legendary,  has,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  never  been  printed.3  The  extract  which  I 
present  herewith  for  comparison  with  the  text  of 
the  Cotton  MS.  is  taken  from  the  earliest  extant 
text  of  the  Southern  Passion — that  in  Harl.  2277, 
a  manuscript  written  about  1300. 4  The  parallel 
lines  in  the  Cotton  Cursor  begin  at  v.  16749, 
the  very  point  at  which  the  later  hand  makes  its 
appearance — though  Morris,  in  numbering  the 
lines  of  the-  Cotton  text,  marks  the  divergence 
from  the  other  Cursor  MSS.  as  beginning  15  lines 
further  on.  The  Cotton  interpolator,  beginning 
at  v.  16,749,  replaced  54  lines  of  the  Cursor  text 
by  163  lines  taken  from  the  "  Southern  Passion." 
He  then  returned  to  the  text  of  the  Cursor  for  12 
lines  (16,803-14),  and  followed  these  by  a  second 
borrowing  (72  lines)  from  the  "Passion." 

Though  the  scribe  of  Harl.  2277  writes  his  text 
in  long  lines,  the  metre  is  identical  with  that  of 
the  Cursor,  in  which  the  septenary  has  been  split 
into  short  lines.9 


(fol.  12a) 


16749  Bi  ihesws  Kode  stod  '.  his  moder  J>at  cam 


&  Marie  Cleofe  i  his  moder  soster  also 


2  Altengl.  Legend.,  Neue  Folge,  p.  Ixvii. 

8  One  of  my  students,  Miss  M.  M.  Keiller,  has  under- 
taken to  edit  the  complete  text  of  the  "Southern  Pas- 
sion ' '  from  several  MSS. 

4  Laud  MS.  108,  slightly  earlier  than  Harl.  2277,  pre- 
serves a  fragment  (141  lines)  of  the  "Southern  Passion." 
This  will  be  found  in  Horstmann's  Leben  Jesu  (Miinster, 
1873)  beginning  at  line  761. 

6  The  numbers  in  the  margin  refer  to  the  corresponding 
lines  in  the  Cotton  text  of  the  Cursor,  as  numbered  in  the 
E.  E.  T.  S.  edition. 


&  Marie  magdalenef  and  J>o  ihesws  isej 
His  moder  &  his  disciple!   seint  lohn 

\>ai  stod  hire  neg 
pat  he  louede  ]>o  he  seide  f  to  his  moder 

anon 
16757  Womman  lo  her  ]>i  sone '.  bo  seide  he  to 

seint  lohn 
Lo  her  j?i  moder  &  seint  lohn  i  as  Jmlke 

tyme  iwis 
In  his  poer  vnderfeng ;  >e  heje  quene 

of  blis 
Our  leuedi  as  hire  owe  sone ;  he  bitoc 

seint  lohn 
As  ho  saij>  beo  \>n  hire  sone  .'   on  me  naj> 

heo  non 
3-10   We  ne  fyndeb  nogt  iwrite  f    >at  oure 

leuedi  in  all  hire  sore 
Spac  oj;t  bote  makede  deoli  ne  migte  no 

womman  more 
Hire  deol  passede  alle  deoles '.  heo  nolde 

confort  non 
pat  suerd  heo  felde  at  hire  hurtei  )>ot 

bihet  hire  symeon. 

(Here  follow  20  lines  which  have  no  equivalent 
in  the  Cotton  text. ) 

11         Wei  pitousliche  oure  louerd  seide  f  nou 

hit  is  ido 
po  }>e  gy  wes  brougte  oure  louerd  i  galle 

&  vynegre  also 
(fol.  12b)  po  bigonne  tenebresi    &  were  her  an 

vrj>e  idon 
In   be  sixte  tide  of  J>e  day  f    bat  we 

clipieb  non 
24-30  pe  tenebres  is  durchedei    \>er  nas  no 

more  li^t 
purfout  al  middel  erbe  i  j>an  hit  were 

midnigt 
Hit    began    at    oue?-non  i    &    forte    )>e 

noegebe  tide  ilaste 
po    wolde    beo   ouenion  i    J>o  were    be 

schrewen  agaste 
pe  sonne  was  blac  hit  was  eclips  i  agon 

cunde  ynoug 
Ne  rnigte  >e  sonne  schyne  no  leng  i  pan 

he  to  depe  droug 
31-38  Lute  wonder  me  bins)'  hit  was  bo  i  J>es 

heo  ne  migte  schyne 
Whan  be  maister  of  sonne  &  mone  i  an 

vrbe  >olede  such  pyne 
pe  sonne  wibdroug  hire  ligt  also  i  &  non 

an  vr)>e  ne  sende 
ffor  he  nolde  schyne  on  hem  i  )>at  oure 

louerd  an  vrj?e  schende 
39-58   Meni  grete  clerkesi    J>«t  were  in  oj>er 

londe 
I-sege  &  ne  migte   on  he  eclips  i    no 

reisoun  vnderstonde 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


17 


(fol.  13a) 


&  of  oure  loue?-d  hi  nuste  nogt  i  &  gut 

jmrf  clergie  hi  bojte 
pat  libere  men  her  an  vrbe  i  oure  louerd 

to  debe  brogte 
&  vnderstode  of  godes  cunde  '    \>at  he 

was  flesch  &  bon 
&  ber-burf  were  sibbe  i-cristned  &  seint 

Denys  was  \>at  on 
For  seint  Denys  Jnilke  tyraef  in  Atte- 

nesse  was 
He  sej  be  eclips  age  cunde  i  him  won- 

drede  of  b«t  cas 
&  nobing  he  nuste  of  god  i    for  cristine 

nas  he  nogt 
&  gut  burf  his  clergie  '.  J>is  word  com  on 

his  bogt 
Ober  god  boleb  deb  in  flesch  i  ober  wor- 

dles  cunde 
Is  ibrojt  al  vp  &  doun  i  &  J>is  word  was 

in  munde 
&  burf  bulke   word  >er  afterward  f    as 

seint  poul  bi  him  com 
&  burf  pur  reisoun  of   his  clergie  i    he 

afeng  cn'stendom 
59-69   Ac  in  be  neogebe  tide  of  be  dai  '.    oure 

louerd  gan  cn'e  &  grede 
ffor  grete  angusse  of  be  debes  J>rowe  i  & 

buse  wordes  sede 
Mi  god  whi  hastou  me  forsake  i  eft  sone 

he  seide  so 
Mi  god  whi  hastou  me  forsake  i  bo  be 

gost  scholde  out  go 
fforsake  he  huld  him  for  no  man  i    for 

his  wonden  stronge 
Ne  turnde  to  him  bote  be  beof  i    \>at  bi 

him  was  anhonge 
&  b«t  greuede  him  more  ban  his  deb  '. 

berfore  J>is  he  sede 
Heli  '  heli  '  as  je  hureb  i  in  >e  passioun 

rede 
pat  was  ^e  langage  of  ebreu  i  Jxit  among 

be  gywes  is 
To  sigge  as  ic/t  seide  er  :  an  englisch  al 

t>is 
Mi  god  whi  hastou  me  forsake!    &  }x> 

anon  gan  crte 
pe  Komeyns  }>at  ihurde  J>is  •   seide  he 

clipejj  Elie 
Loke  we  wher  Elie  comei    to  bringe 

him  from  }>e  de}> 
70-76  Mi  fader  ihesws  seide  J>o  i    mid  wel  softe 

bre> 
Ich  bitake  mi  gost  in  his  hond  i  &  began 

to  closi  his  ege 
&  his  heued  heng  adouni    &  mid  l?at 

word  gan  deye 
Ou  ihesu  ho  mai   his   ihure)>  i    wi>oute 

wop  of  hurte 
Hardi  is  J>e  hurte  J>at  hit  hure)>  i    bote 

he  wepe  &  smurte 


put    \>u    scholdest   so   bitere   wepe   for 

ous  i  &  so  bitere  grede 
&  for  ous  lete  J>i  lyf  i   alias  oure  wrec- 

chede 
Ne  mijte  >e  vrj>e  here  J>i  dejj  i    J>at  is 

J^ing  wij^oute  rede 
pat  heo  graliche  ne  qttakede  i  as  ho  sai)> 

for  drede 
98-101   Alias   man   whar   is   |>yn  hurte  i    hou 

migtou  ihure  \>is 
Bote  J>u  quake  for  sorwe  '.  gret  deol  of  J>e 

hit  is 
Treo  ne  stones  ne  J>olede  nojt  i  |>at  his 

hurte  to  breke  atuo 
Aboute  ]>e  place  in  meni  stede  '  J?at  hi 

ne  berste  also 
Clones  \>at  in  J>e  temple  were  '.    to-cloue 

also  amidde 
Dede  menne  J^rouges  to-bersten  ek  i    as 

merci  to  bidde 
Ou  ihesu  strong  was  Jn  dejji  whan  harde 

treon  &  stones 
To-berste    }>o     bin    hurte    to-braci     & 

prouges  mid  menne  bones 
Man   hou    mistou    J>is   ihure  i    ]xit    \>in 

hurte  ne  bregb  anon 
Alias  man  which  is  bin  hurte  i    hardere 

J>an  eni  ston 
pi  louerd  deide  in  stronge  pyne  '   &  in 

stronge  debe 
Sor  be  &  bu  ert  his  hynei  &  ert  sori 

vnebe 
pe  sonne  list    &  heuene   brigt  f    here 

vertu  gonne  quenche 
104-5  &  bu  for  wham  he  bolede  al  bat  i  vnebe 

wolt  b«ron  benche  [bis  dede 

106-17     A    prophete  of  oure  louerd  f  longe  bifore 

/\  As  burf  oure  loue?-des  moub  '  &  b"se 

wordes  sede 
An  oxe  [si'c]  him  mai  fynde  a  sti  '.  &  a 

turtle  a  nest  also 
Whar  on  sitte  &  walewy  i  &  \>eron  reste 


And  ihesws  nis  an  vrbe  nogt  i   so  moche 

god  bileued 
Wher-vpe    he    mowe  enesS    reste  his 

weri  heued 

Ou  ihesu  suete  bing  •  were  bu  so  riche  bo 
Nere  bu  king  of  alle  kinges  '.  wher  was 

bi  god  ago 
118-25   pe  nas  nogt  ileued  so  moche  god  i  wher 

on  bu  migtest  deye 
Ne  a  wrecche  turf  of  hard  vrbe  f    vp  in 

be  eyr  an  heye 
Ne  bi  sell  lymes  nere  i  i-granted  bo  no 

be  mo 
pat  eni  migte  helpe  obcri    hou  migte 

beo  more  wo 
Hou  miste  so  pore  de>  '  eni  man  iseo 


18 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xx vi,  No.  1. 


Biter  &  strong  &    eke  pore  i     louerd 

ihered  }>u  beo 
(fol.  13b)  138-49  No  wonder  hit  nas  J>es  J>e  sonne  i  wer 

in  durchede  ido 
Whan  treon  &  harde  stones  i  &  clones 

burste  atuo 
pe  gywes  )>at  him  slogei  \>o  hi  sege  al 

J?is  cas 
gut  hi  seide  J>is  man  her  i  for  soj>e  rigt- 

ful  was 
Menie  J>at  in  J>e  place  stode  i  i-baptiged 

were 

(Second         ffor  miracles  \>at  hi  sege'.    &  also   for 
insertion.)  fere 

1-4  po  was  here  lawe  if  eni  mani  were  to 

det>e  ibrogt 
Aboute  >e  feste  of  ester  i    }>at   he    ne 

bileuede  \>er  nogt 
Ac  adoun  for  }>e  hege  feste  i  of  JJG  Rode 

were  ido 
Nyme  hi  wolde  oure  louerd  adoun  i  & 

J>e  J>eoues  also 
Ac  to  beo  siker  >at  he  were  ded  i    his 

J>ien  hi  to-breke 
Ac  }>o  hi  to  oure  louerd  come!  more 

schame  hi  him  speke 
23-28  Longius  a  blynd  knigt  \>tr  stod  i  a  spere 

hi  him  caste 
&  sette  him  to  oure  louerdes  rigt  side  i 

&  bede  him  scheoue  faste 
31-36   pat  spere  he  schof  to  his  hurte  i  \>er  com 

eut  water  &  blod 
His  egen  J>erwiJ>  he  wipede ;  &  hadde 

sigt  wel  god 
Merci  he  cride  oure  louerd  i  &  let  him 

baptise  iwis 
&  si)>)>e  he  was  y-martird  i  &  god  halewe 

in  heuene  is. 

(Here  follow  20  lines  which  have  no  equivalent 
in  the  Cotton  text. ) 

(fol.  14a)  Whan  \>e  endes  were  y-opened  J>erei  in 

gret  angusse  &  sore 
Clene  orn  out  J>e  veyne  blod  i  J?at  \>er  ne 

com  out  no  more 
37-44  per  tie  migte  suete  >ing  on  J?e ;  no  more 

blod  beo  ifounde 
Bote  hit  were  J?e  suete  lyues  drope  i  at 

J?yn  hurte  grounde 
jut  nolde  }>e  gywes  }>at  bileoue  i  as  hi 

nome  red 
po  me  schof  >e  spere  }>erto  i   for  loke 

whar  J>u  were  ded 
45-52  Suete  ihesu  moche  was  }>e  loue '.  J>at  J>u 

cuddest  J^ere 
pu  woldest  we  were  i-saued  i    J>at  no 

defaute  nere 
Mid  >e  leste  drope  of  )>i  blod  i  >u  migtest 

habbe  ibougt 
&  J?u  geue  for  ous  euerech  drope  i  \>ai 

\>er  ne  bileuede  nogt 


53-60  No  more  vylt  >an  hi  dude  i  ne  migte  \>e 

gywes  }>e  do 
Bituene  tuei  gywes  [s;'c]  hi  >e  honge  i  & 

in  wylde  stede  also 
ffor  vpe  >e  hul  of  Caluarie  i  whan  eni 

J>eoues  were 
Inome  for  }>eof)>e  &  idemd  i   anhonge  hi 

were  J>ere 
61-64  &  anhonge  on   j>e  Rode  £    as  J>u  were 

ihesu  also 
No>ing  nas  vilere  J>an  \>e  Rode  i   er  )>u 

were  on  ido 
pat  was  J>e  stede  vil  i  &  \>e  dom  &  }>e 

treo 
pat  }>u  were  on  to  de}>e  ido  '.  ihesu  iherep 

J>u  beo 
69-72  ffor  >e  gywes  to  so}>e  isege  i    J>at  oure 

louej-d  was  ded 
ffor  J>e  feste  hi  X>j;te  him  nyme  adoun  i 

as  hi  hadde  er  ised 
5-12  An  old  knigt  \>ai  hadde  oure   louerd 

longe  iloued '.  Joseph  of  .Arymathie 
Ac  he  ne  berfte  )>erof  beo  iknowef  for 

doute  of  aspie 
He  bad  pilatws  ihesuses  bodi  i  and  he  gaf 

hit  him  anon 
po  nam  he  wi}j  him  Nichodemws  i  &  to 

\>Q  Rode  gan  gon 
&  to  \>e  sepulcre  \>e  bodi  bere  i  &  nome 

adoun  of  }>e  Rode. 

Comparing  this  extract  from  the  "Southern 
Passion ' '  with  the  interpolated  passage  in  the 
Cotton  text  of  the  Cursor,  one  sees  that  the  inter- 
polator, though  directly  depending  on  the  "Pas- 
sion, ' '  has  treated  his  original  with  freedom,  re- 
lieving much  of  its  prolixity  by  varying  or  omit- 
ting at  his  pleasure.  It  is  interesting  to  note,  fur- 
ther, the  appearance  here  and  there  of  lines  and 
phrases  from  the  original  text  of  the  Cursor,  which 
the  interpolation  displaced.6  The  weaving  in  of 
this  material,  moreover,  has  been  intelligently, 
even  skilfully,  accomplished.  In  a  word,  the  in- 
terpolation in  the  Cotton  MS.  of  the  Cursor  Mundi 
must  be  recognized  as  the  work  of  an  editor  rather 
than  of  a  scribe. 


Bryn  Mawr  College. 


CARLETON  BROWN. 


6  Following  is  a  list  of  the  lines  in  the  Cotton  interpola- 
tion which  appear  to  derive  from  the  original  text  in  the 
Cursor:  Cott.  12  =  Cursor  16767,  Cott.  14-16  =  Crwrs. 
16772-3,  Cott.  23  =  6Vs.  16783,  Cott.  78-81  =  Curs. 
16779-82,  Cott.  82-85  =  Curs.  16783-6.  Second  inser- 
tion: Cott.  17-22=  Ours.  16829-34,  Cott.  29-30=  Ours. 
16843. 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


19 


A  NEW  CHAUCER  ITEM. 

Every  detail  in  the  life  or  work  of  one  of  our 
older  authors  is  so  important,  so  necessary  in 
building  a  structure  that  can  never  be  too  com- 
plete, that  we  all  wish  to  know  as  early  as  possi- 
ble any  new  discovery.  It  is  pleasant,  therefore, 
to  call  attention  to  a  new  ray  of  light  on  the  life 
of  Chaucer,  first  seen  by  a  worker  in  another 
field.  In  the  scholarly  and  ample  Histoire.de 
Charles  V  by  R.  Delachenal,  the  first  two  volumes 
of  which  appeared  in  1909,  the  author  notes  that 
Chaucer  acted  as  confidential  messenger  to  Ed- 
ward III  in  connection  with  the  peace  negotia- 
tions at  Calais  in  1360.  The  record,  though 
brief,  is  more  than  suggestive  of  larger  things. 
In  the  Exchequer  Accounts  preserved  in  the  Pub- 
lic Record  Office,  Bundle  a  1  4,  no.  1,  M.  Dela- 
chenal found  this  slight  entry  :  * 

'  '  Datum  Galfrido  Chaucer,  per  preceptum 
domiui,  eundo  cum  litteris  in  Angliam  iii  real. 


To  understand  the  relations  of  this  brief  entry 
it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  the  events  of  this 
important  time.  In  the  spring  of  1359  the  truce 
of  Bordeaux  had  expired,  together  with  its  exten- 
sions to  St.  John's  day,  June  24.  During  the 
summer  the  English  king  made  extraordinary 
preparations  for  an  army  to  crush  France  once 
for  all.2  With  this  army,  too,  Chaucer,  then  a 
young  man  of  nineteen  or  twenty,  entered  upon 
his  first  military  experience.  At  the  last  of  Oc- 
tober the  grand  army  of  Edward  left  England, 
and  early  in  November  marched  from  Calais,  its 
objective  the  holy  city  of  Reims  where  French 
kings  had  been  crowned  for  centuries.  There  it 
was  Edward's  purpose  to  take  the  French  crown, 

1  Hisloire  de  Charles  V,  IT,  241,  footnote.      In  reviewing 
M.   Delachenal  (Eng.  Hist.  Review,  Jan.,   1910,   p.  160), 
J.  F.  Tout  mentions  the   latter's  note  on  Chaucer  thus  : 
"  M.    Delachenal   (11,  241)    quotes  from   an   Exchequer 
Account  evidence  that  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  already   ran- 
somed from  his  short  captivity,  was  a  humble  participant 
in  the  negotiations  of  October,  1360,  at  Calais,  being  sent 
thence  by  royal  precept  with  letters  to  England."     From 
tliis,  however,  one  would  scarcely  gather  the  importance 
of  this  new  note. 

2  Froissart's  Chronicles,  I,  ch.  ccvi  ;   Johnes's  trans.,  I, 
269. 


which  he  claimed  as  his  by  right  of  inheritance. 
Then  he  would  conquer  the  country  he  already 
considered  his  own.  But  the  campaign  went  badly 
for  the  great  commander,  as  it  went  badly  for  his 
less  exalted  subject,  the  young  esquire.  Reims 
would  not  surrender  herself  even  to  the  great  Ed- 
ward, and  the  young  Chaucer,  probably  in  some 
too-bold  foraging  expedition,  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  enemy. 

After  the  unsuccessful  seige  of  Reims  for  some 
weeks,  Edward  salved  his  wounded  vanity  by 
marching  still  further  into  the  heart  of  France  in 
January,  1360.  On  March  first  of  that  year  he 
also  ransomed  his  young  retainer,  the  poet,  per- 
haps with  money  he  had  too  easily  extorted  from 
the  duke  of  Burgundy  for  immunity  from  invasion 
of  his  lands.  When  the  English  king  finally 
reached  Paris,  things  went  little  better  than  they 
had  done  at  Reims.  The  crafty  duke  of  Nor- 
mandy would  not  accept  Edward's  challenge  to 
fight,  and  famine  forced  him  to  march  off  toward 
Brittany.  In  May,  however,  while  at  Bretigny 
near  Chartres,  the  English  king  was  persuaded  to 
accept  terms  of  peace.  These  terms,  roughly 
sketched  at  the  little  village  which  gives  its  name 
to  the  treaty,  were  to  be  worked  out  in  detail  at 
Calais  during  the  following  months. 

Immediately  after  the  peace  preliminaries  at 
Bretigny,  Edward  III  and  the  four  sons  who  had 
accompanied  him 3  in  the  campaign  returned  to 
England.*  Edward,  and  doubtless  his  sons,  sailed 
from  Honfieur,  landing  at  Rye  on  the  evening 
of  the  18th  of  May.  Then,  too,  if  the  usually 
reliable  Fcedera*  is  to  be  followed,  the  king 
mounted  his  horse  at  once  and  reached  London 
by  nine  o'clock  the  next  morning.  That  the 
Black  Prince,  the  prince  of  Wales,  was  also  in 
England  soon  after  is  evident  from  another  fact. 
In  July,  with  the  duke  of  Lancaster,  he  escorted 
the  captive  king,  John  of  France,  to  Dover,  per- 
haps to  Calais,  on  the  return  of  the  prisoner  to  his 
native  country.  The  company  rode  by  way  of 
Canterbury,  made  the  same  halts  for  the  night  as 

'Froissart's  Chron.,  i,  ch.  ccvii ;  Johnes,  i,  269. 

*  Thomas  Gray's  Scalacronica,  p.  196. 

5  Eymer's  Fcedera,  vi,  196.  It  is  a  tall  tale,  since  Rye 
is  fifty-five  miles  from  London  as  the  crow  flies.  But 
sometimes  distances,  like  nice  customs,  "curtsy  to  great 
kings" ;  or  better  still,  such  a  journey  was  not  impossible 
to  strenuous  Edward,  not  yet  forty-eight  years  old. 


20 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


Chaucer's  Pilgrims  are  generally  believed  to  have 
done,  that  is  at  Dartford,  Rochester,  and  Ospringe,6 
and  like  them  reached  Canterbury  on  the  fourth 
day.  As  Chaucer  was  in  the  household  of  Lionel, 
or  of  his  countess  wife,  we  must  suppose  that  he 
too  returned  to  England  in  May,  1360. 

In  August  Edward  sent  the  prince  of  Wales 
over  to  Calais,  to  continue  the  negotiations  begun 
at  Bre"tigny  and  elaborate  in  detail  the  terms  of 
peace.  He  left  London  August  24  and  remained 
at  Calais  until  November  6,  when  he  was  again  in 
London.  This  exact  statement  of  time  is  based 
upon  another  Exchequer  record  found  by  M.  Dela- 
cheual.  It  shows  that  the  prince  was  paid  a  pound 
a  day  for  seventy -five  days,  or  from  August  24  to 
November  6  inclusive.7  The  treaty  itself  was 
signed  October  24. 

It  was  during  these  negotiations  that  Chaucer 
was  a  bearer  of  letters  to  England.  So  far  as  we 
know,  Lionel,  earl  of  Ulster,  to  whose  household 
Chaucer  was  attached,  had  not  gone  over  to  Calais 
with  the  prince  of  Wales.  This  would  seem  to 
show  that  Chaucer  must  have  been  detached, 
temporarily  at  least,  from  Lionel's  household, 
and  have  been  more  directly  in  the  king's,  or  at 
least  the  prince's  employ.  While  both  Lionel 
and  Edmund,  as  well  as  the  prince  of  Wales, 
were  with  their  father,  the  king,  in  the  final 
ratification  of  the  treaty,  there  is  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  they  preceded  him  to  Calais.  Edward 
himself  did  not  go  until  October.  On  the  other 
hand  we  do  know  that  Chaucer  had  ridden  the 
campaign  in  France  with  the  division  of  the  prince 
of  Wales,  to  which  the  other  sons  of  Edward  were 
attached,  and  possibly  at  this  time  the  future  poet 
had  attracted  the  attention  of  the  Black  Prince.8 
In  any  case,  the  payment  for  Chaucer's  services  on 
this  occasion,  by  order  of  the  king  himself,  throws 
new  light  upon  the  poet's  detachment  from  the 
service  of  Lionel. 

6  Furnivall,  Temporary  Preface  to  the  Canterbury  Tales, 
p.  129  ;  based  on  Comptes  de  V  Argenlerie,  published  for  the 
Societe"  de  1'histoire  de  France  by  L.  Douet-d' Areq. 

7 Histoire  de  Charles  V,  n,  241 ;  Exchequer  Accounts, 
Bundle  314,  no.  2. 

8Froissart's  Chron.,  i,  chap,  ccvii ;  Johnes,  I,  269: 
"Next  marched  the  strong  battalion  of  the  prince  of 
Wales;  he  was  accompanied  by  his  brothers."  I  hope 
soon  to  print  a  study  of  this  campaign  of  1359-60,  with 
special  reference  to  Chaucer,  and  shall  then  give  more 
ully  my  authority  for  some  of  these  statements. 


The  record  gives  no  further  hint  of  the  character 
of  Chaucer's  services.  The  "  letters  "  doubtless 
related  to  the  peace  negotiations  themselves,  prob- 
ably to  difficult  points  upon  which  the  prince  of 
Wales  wished  special  advice  from  the  king.  Per- 
haps they  referred  to  a  most  vital  point  then  being 
pressed  by  the  French  representatives,  the  renun- 
ciation of  the  title  ' '  king  of  France ' '  made  by 
Edward  III  at  Bretigny.  This  renunciation  was 
now  wholly  omitted  from  the  terms  of  the  treaty 
of  Calais.  It  was  a  clever  move  on  the  part  of  the 
French  negotiators,  for  by  this  omission  the  treaty 
appeared  to  disregard  such  claim  on  the  part  of 
Edward.  Whatever  we  conjecture,  the  service  it- 
self speaks  for  the  recognized  trustworthiness  of 
the  young  poet.  It  was  a  first,  and  possibly  not 
an  unimportant  step  toward  the  position  in  the 
king's  household  of  a  few  years  later,  and  even 
toward  the  diplomatic  positions  which  another 
decade  brought  to  him. 

Further  than  this,  the  new  fact  regarding 
Chaucer  gives  at  least  some  definite  data  for  a 
period  hitherto  a  blank  in  his  life.  After  his 
ransom  by  the  king,  March  1,  1360,  we  have  had 
no  record  of  him  until  June  20,  1367,  when  the 
king  granted  him  a  pension  of  twenty  marks  a 
year  as  ' '  our  chosen  valet. "  a  It  is  true  that  a 
pension  of  ten  marks  a  year  to  Philippa  Chaucer, 
on  September  12,  1366, 10  is  usually  supposed  to  be 
indirectly  connected  with  her  marriage  to  the  poet 
about  that  time.  But  direct  reference  to  Chaucer 
himself  does  not  occur  until  the  following  year. 

We  now  know,  however,  that  as  early  as  the 
beginning  of  the  period  1360-67  Chaucer  had 
been  selected  for  a  mission  of  trust  by  the  king, 
or  by  the  highest  in  authority  next  to  the  king, 
the  prince  of  Wales.  There  is  thus  more  ground 
than  has  generally  been  supposed  for  believing 
Chaucer  may  have  had,  even  so  early,  some  con- 
nection with  the  king's  service.  Some  years  ago 
Professor  Skeat  conjectured  this  with  assurance. 
He  says:  "He  [Chaucer]  must  have  been  at- 
tached to  the  royal  household  not  long  after  the 
return  of  the  English  army  from  France. "  u  Mr. 
Kirk,  also,  in  Forewords  to  Life  Records  (1901) 
argues  for  the  same  idea,  on  the  ground  that  the 
annuity  granted  Chaucer  in  1367  must  have  been 

9  Life  Records  of  Chaucer,  p.  160.  10/6icZ.,  p.  158. 

11  Works  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  I,  xx  (1894). 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


21 


for    service    extending    over  some    considerable 
time.12 

One  further  note  of  interpretation  may  be  ven- 
tured. Apparently  the  record  above  was  made  at 
Calais,  since  it  refers  to  bearing  letters  to  England 
[in  Angliam]  rather  than  from  France.  This 
would  also  account  for  the  reckoning  of  the  com- 
pensation in  French  reals,  followed  by  the  state- 
ment in  English  shillings.  At  least  such  a  sup- 
position would  explain  the  last  part  of  the  entry,  * 
even  though  the  MS.  is  illegible,  as  shown  by  the 
brackets.  Exactly  the  same  reckoning  in  French 
and  English  money  occurs  in  the  expense  ac- 
counts13 of  King  John's  return  to  France,  already 
mentioned  as  taking  place  in  this  same  year.  We 
there  learn  also  the  value  of  the  real,  three  times 
mentioned  as  equivalent  to  three  shillings.14  We 
may  thus  infer  that  the  completed  Exchequer  rec- 
ord would  probably  read,  "-iii  real[s,  some  word 
for  'valued  at',  i]x  s." 

The  French  historian  adds  no  comment  on  the 
record  he  has  discovered,  except  to  say  that  he 
does  not  know  whether  it  has  been  found  by 
Chaucer's  biographers.  Nor  does  he  suggest  the 
possibility  of  other  information  regarding  Chaucer 
in  the  unpublished  Exchequer  accounts.  It  would 
seem  not  unlikely  that  something  more  may  yet  be 
found,  in  spite  of  the  fairly  thorough  search  which 
has  been  made.  Yet  even  if  this  should  not  prove 
true,  every  Chaucer  student  will  be  grateful  to  M. 
Delachenal  for  this  single  gleaning  regarding  the 
poet's  life. 

OLIVER  FAEEAR  EMEESON. 

Western  Reserve  University. 


"He  was  in  the  king's  service  daring  the  greater  part 
of  that  period  [1300-67],  as  he  received  an  annuity  at  the 
end  of  it.  Life  Records  of  Chaucer,  p.  xv. 

13  Life  Records  of  Chaucer,  Appendix  II,  p.  129. 

"Compare,  " Le  Roy,  offerande  a  la  messe,  a  Eltan 
[Eltharn],  1  royanl,  3  s."— p.  129.  "  Monseigneur  Phil- 
ippe, pour  semblable,  en  ce  lieu,  16  royaux,  3  s.  piece, 
valent,  par  mons.  de  Jargny,  48  s." — p.  131.  "Mons. 
Philippe,  pour  semblable,  1  royau,  3s." — p.  132. 


Contributions  a  I' Etude  de  I'  Hispanisme  de  G.  E. 
Leasing,  par  CAMILLE  PITOLLET,  Paris,  Fe"lix 
Alcan,  editeur,  108,  Boulevard  St. -Germain, 
1909,  large  8vo.,  xiii  and  342  pp.1 

It  is  impossible  to  follow  this  work  throughout 
all  of  its  details,  without  a  study  quite  as  minute 
and  painstaking  as  that  of  the  author.    From  this 
may  be  inferred  that  the  material  gathered  from 
everywhere  is  unusually  large.     This  review  will 
therefore  be  limited  to  two  considerations  :  first, 
the  value  of  the  work  as  a  scientific  contribution  ; 
second,  its  qualities  apart  from  the  subject,  that 
is,   its  readableness.     These   two   must   be  kept 
separate  for  reasons  which  will  become  evident. 
The  author  divides  the  book  into  two  parts,  and 
proposes  to  answer  two  questions:  first,  "aquel 
degre"  Lessing  savait-il  1'espagnol  ?  "    In  this  con- 
nection he  uses  ' '  several  translations  or  fragments 
of  translations  which  were  made  by  Lessing  at 
different  stages  of  his  career. "  Second:  "aquelles 
sources  Lessing  a-t-il  pulse*  lorsqu'il  a  parle*  de 
1'Espagne  ?  "     Here  the  author  intends  to  show, 
that,  in  as  much  as  Lessing  had  only  ' '  confused 
and  rudimentary"    notions  of    the  language  (a 
basis  to  be  established  by  the  answer  to  the  first 
proposition),  he  must  have  had  recourse  to  inter- 
mediate sources  for  his  information  and  judgment 
on  Spanish  writers. 

An  unbiased  and  careful  examination  of  the 
question  of  Lessing' s  hispanisme  makes  it  unde- 
niable that  the  very  general  traditional  acceptance 
of  his  authority  in  the  field  of  Spanish  has  gone 
too  far  ;  that  the  available  facts  ot  his  learning 
and  of  his  sources  have  not  been  accorded  the  full 
investigation  which  they  have  deserved.  Owing 
to  this  circumstance,  literary  historians  in  general, 
and  Lessingforscher  in  particular,  were  not  only 
sure  to  meet  with  criticism  of  their  own  attitude, 
they  were  bound  to  witness  an  inevitable  reaction 
against  the  prestige  enjoyed  by  Lessing  in  His- 
panic matters.  It  was,  therefore,  merely  a  ques- 

*Cf.  also  a  Reprint  from  "  Vragen  en  Mededeelingen 
op  het  Gebied  der  Geschicdcnis,  Taal  en  Letterkunde," 
entitled  L' Hispanisme  de  Lessing,  by  the  same  author,  in 
which  he  says  :  "  Nous  voudrions,  dans  1'objective  Selbst- 
anzeige  qui  va  suivre,  donner  .  .  .  quelques  ne"cessaires 
complements,  dont  plusieurs  tie  seront  que  des  corrections, 
etc." 


22 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


tion  of  the  extreme  to  which  such  criticism  or  such 
reaction  would  go  when  it  came.  The  extreme 
way  was  pointed  some  years  ago  by  Paul  Al- 
brecht,  who  in  his  Lessings  Plagiate,  1890-91, 
accuses  Lessing  of  manifold  plagiarism  in  his  dra- 
matic and  other  works  ;  and  it  is  continued  with 
something  of  the  same  spirit  by  the  author  of  the 
present  Contributions,  etc.,  who  has  carried  the 
campaign  into  the  Spanish  field,  and  who  has, 
with  unwearying  labor,  searched  out  every  possi- 
ble defect  in  Lessing' s  armor. 

The  first  part  of  the  book  contains  five  sections 
of  translations  intended  to  show  the  character  of 
Lessing' s  work,  the  most  important,  as  regards 
serious  effort,  being  those  which  deal  with  his 
version  of  Huarte'  s  Examen  de  ingenios  para  las 
sciencias  etc.,  Johann  Huarts  Prufung  der  Kopfe 
zu  den  Wissenschaften  etc.,  p.  3,  the  play  Essex, 
p.  22,  and  the  Maranon,  being  Pedro  Cudena's 
Discripcion  .  .  .  de  Brasil  etc. ,  p.  32.  Numerous 
parallels  of  the  Spanish  and  German  texts  are 
given  to  demonstrate  the  insufficiency  of  the  trans- 
lations, and  many  of  them  are  shown  to  be  wrong. 
The  most  satisfactory  evidence  of  an  inadequate 
acquaintance  with  Spanish,  on  the  part  of  Les- 
sing, is  the  comparison  of  the  entire  text  of  Cu- 
dena's Discripcion  with  the  whole  German  version 
and  its  corrections.  The  latter  translation,  it  will 
be  remembered,  had  been  first  made  by  an  anony- 
mous person,  and  was  edited  by  Lessing,  ' '  mit 
Anmerkungen  und  Zusatzen  begleitet,  von  Chr. 
Leiste"  in  1780. 

In  the  case  of  some  of  the  examples  cited,  it 
must  be  objected  that  the  method  pursued  by  the 
author  of  paralleling  isolated  phrases  or  sentences 
is  by  no  means  always  convincing  ;  that  it  would 
be  most  unjust  to  class  all  of  the  examples  as 
'  colossales  bevues. '  Notably  some  of  the  dramatic 
translations  are  very  fair,  such  as  occur  in  the 
Essex,  for  example ;  they  not  only  surpassed  the 
standards  of  the  time,  but  served  their  particular 
purpose  well,  as  fair  consideration  of  all  that  was 
given  to  the  public  in  the  Hamburgische  Drama- 
turgic will  show. 

Some  of  the  following  translations,  though  rather 
free  at  times,  are  not  as  objectionable  as  we  are  led 
to  suppose  : 


Y  echanaperder  la  salud          Gleichfalls    ist    die  Ge- 


de  los  hombres  [los  que  son 
inhabiles  par  la  medicina]. 
(Huarte,  p.  6.) 


sundlieit  der  Menschen  in 
nicht  geringer  Gefahr  [da 
sicli  die  Leute  die  ganz  uu- 
geschickt  zurMedicin  sind, 
damit  abgeben]. 


(Cf.  also  the  whole  of  p.  9  ff.,  where  single  words 
and  fragments  of  sentences  without  the  context 
are,  in  several  cases,  an  unsatisfactory  proof  of 
their  inadequacy. ) 

The  double  meaning  of  aveis  menester  asiento, 
"you  must  be  seated,"  and  "you  must  be  de- 
liberate," is  hard  to  give,  and  Lessing  has  only 
the  first.  Eraclio  und  Argila,  p.  14. 

Bien  sabeis  .  .  .  Ihr  wisst  es  allzuwohl. 

— P.  14,  Eraclio  und  Argila. 


y  bien  sabeis.  que  mi  vida 
esta  nsida  al  postrer  hilo, 
al  mas  roto,  y  mas  gastado, 
que  el  tiempo  le  ha  consumido, 
y  que  no  tiene  seguro, 
porque  ya  elfiero  cuchillo 
de  la  muerte  le  amenaza 
sin    que    de     otro    quede 

asido ;  etc. 
pues  soy  tres  para  ayudarte 

a  sentir. 

Ea,  dime  tu  pesar,  .  .  . 
Malogrose  nuestro  oido.  .  .  . 
Harto  el  no  oirla  he  sentido. 

En     fin     quieres    que    la 

cuente? 
Ya  te  aguardo.  .  .  . 

porque  la  naturaleza, 
quando  los  segundos  nacen, 
lo  que  en  el  poder  les  quita. 
en  el  valor  les  anade. 


Ihr  wisst  auch,  dassmein 
Leben  an  dem  letzten  Fa- 
den  hiingt,  der  zugleich  der 
scJiwachlichste  ist,  und  dass 
ich  unsicher  bin,  dass  ihm 
nicht  die  grausame  Sense  des 
Todes  drohe,  ohne  dass  es  an 
einem  andern  hiinge. — Era- 
clio und  Argila,  p.  14. 2 

Ich  kann  dir  als  eine 
dreyfache  Person  mit  tragen 
helfen.  (Fenix,  p.  17.) 

Gestehe  mir  also  deine 
Unruhe.  (Fenix,  p.  17.) 

Unser  2Zuhoren  hat  also 
schon  ein  Ende. 

Das  verdriisst  mich,  dass 
ichs  nicht  horen  soil.  (Fe- 
nix, p.  18.) 

Du  willst  also,  dass  ichs 
dir  erzehle  ? 

Ich  warte  cben  darauf. 
(Fenix,  p.  18.) 

Es  scheint,  als  wolle  die 
Natur,  bey  Erzeugung  der 
Jiingeren  Prinzen,  das,  was 
ihnen  an  Macht  abgeht, 
(Lurch  ihren  inneren  Werth 
ersetzen.  (Fenix,  p.  20. ) 


(Cf.  also  in  connection  with  the  same  translation, 
n.  3,  p.  20,  Lessing  denature  triplement  la  phrase 
castillane  etc.,  which  is  a  case  of  hacer  de  una 
pulga  un  elefante. ) 

2  The  italics  represent  the  author's  heavy  type. 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


23 


The  author  says,  speaking  of  the  Essex :  ' '  Les- 
sing  paraphrase  presque  constamment  plutot  qu'il 
ne  traduit  les  passages  dont  il  enteud  illustrer  son 
commentaire,  tout  en  donnant  tacitement  et  im- 
plicitement  pour  une  veritable  traduction  ces  in- 
exacts  specimens"  (p.  22).  In  the  first  place, 
Lessing  gives  a  resume*  of  some  scenes,  without 
any  translations,  and,  in  the  second,  specimen 
versions  of  others,  which,  together  with  some  para- 
phrases, contain  very  fair  renderings  of  the  Span- 
ish text.  He  gave  what  was  needed  to  illustrate 
his  principles  and  to  make  known  the  character  of 
the  play  to  the  public.  Consequently,  while  the 
inaccuracy  and  incorrectness  of  occasional  passages 
must  be  admitted,  it  is  exaggerated  to  condemn  all 
of  the  examples  which  are  cited.  Compare,  for 
example,  the  following  : 


REIN.   Loco  amor. — COND. 

Necio  imposible. 
REIN.   Qu6  ciego. — COND. 

Que  teraerario. 
REIN.    Me  abatis  a  tal  ba- 

xeza — 
COND.    Me  quieres  subir  tan 

alto.  . 


DIE  KONIGINN.— Thoriehte 

Liebe ! 

ESSEX. — Eitler  Wahnsinn. 
DIE      KONIGINN.  —  Wie 

blind  ! 

ESSEX. — Wie  verwegen  ! 
DIE  KONIGINN.  —  So    tie/ 

willst  du,  dass  ich  mich 

herabselze  ? 
ESSEX. — So  hoch  willst  du, 

dass  ich  mich  versteige  ? 

(P.  27.) 


and  the  rather  free  translation  : 


BLANCA. 

Pues  requiebros  y  suspires, 
Amores,  ansias,  finezas, 
Y  lagrimas  sobre  todo, 
Son,  aunque  el  honor  no  quie- 

ra, 

Limt  sorda  del  secreto 
En  la  muger  mas  honesta. 
Oh,  cuan  a  mi  costasupe 
Desta  verdad  la  experien- 

cia  ! 
Porque  el  Conde.  .  .  . 

REIN.  El  donde  ?  BLANCA. 
El  mismo. 

REIN.  (ap. )  Que*escucho? 
BLANCA. — Con  BUS  ter- 
nezas  de  amor.  .  .  . 

REIN.— El  Conde  de  Sex  ? 

BLANCA. — Si,  Senora. 


BL. — Schmeicheleyen,  Seuf- 
zer,  Liebkosungen,  und 
besonders  Thriinen, 
sind  vermdgend,  auch 
die  reinste  Tugend  zu 
untergraben.  Wie  theu- 
er  kommt  mir  diese 
Erfahrung  zu  steben  1 
Der  Graf.  .  .  .  DIE 
KONIGINN. — Der  Graf? 
Was  filr  ein  Graft 
BL.  —  Von  Essex.  — 
DIE  KONIGINN. — Was 
horeich?  BL. — Seine 
verfuhrerische  Zart- 
licbkeit  .  .  .  — DIE 
KONIGINN. — Der  Graf 
von  Essex?  BL. — Er 
selbst,  Koniginn.  (P. 
29.) 


These  translations  are  certainly  spirited,  and  give 
a  fair  idea  of  the  dialogue.     On  the  other  hand, 


Lessing  no  doubt  missed  the  peculiarly  Spanish 
quality  of  some  passages. 

But  the  most  convincing  evidence  of  Lessing' s 
superficial  acquaintance  with  the  Spanish  language 
may  be  found  in  the  parallel  columns  of  the  Mara- 
n6n;  that  he  should  have  edited  the  work  with 
such  mistakes,  makes  it  clear  that  he  could  not 
have  had  sufficient  information  nor  experience  to 
translate  carefully  or  interpret  adequately  a  very 
difficult  Spanish  text. 

But  before  closing  the  section  on  Lessing' s 
translations,  a  fuller  discussion  of  the  tools  which 
he  had  at  his  disposal  (cf.  n.  1,  p.  50)  would  have 
been  desirable.  As  translations,  the  efforts  of  Les- 
sing must  be  judged  only  from  the  standpoint  of 
his  own  times  and  of  the  methods  and  instruments 
then  employed.  There  were  certainly  few  trans- 
lating and  defining  dictionaries  of  any  merit, 
(bilingual,  trilingual  or  otherwise)  no  helpful 
grammar,  wretchedly  printed  texts,  and  no  scien- 
tific method  of  deciphering  their  meaning.  As 
late  as  1769,  the  Veldzquez-Dieze  (Gesch.  der 
Spanischen  Dichtkunsty  makes  no  mention,  to  my 
knowledge,  of  a  Spanish-German  dictionary  worth 
consulting  ; s  while  two  specimens  in  my  posses- 
sion, one  a  trilingual  dictionary  and  the  other  a 
grammar,  will  illustrate  not  only  what  Lessing  had 
to  contend  with,  but  how  backward  the  study  of 
Spanish  still  was.  The  first  is  entitled  : 

Tesoro  de  las  tres  Lengvas,  Espanola,  Francesa, 
y  Italiana.  Thresor  des  trois  Langves,  etc.  .  .  . 
Diuise"  en  trois  parties.  Le  tout  recueilli  des  plus 
celebres  Auteurs,  etc.,  par  Hierosme  Victor  Bo- 
lonnois.  Derniere  edition  reueue,  etc. ,  A  Geneve, 
laques  Crespin.  M.  DC.  XLIV.,  8vo.* 

Some  of  the  definitions  of  words  which  are 
wrongly  translated  by  Lessing — who  was  misled, 

3  This  Dieze  would  have  done,  had  there  been  one,  cf. 
p.  122,  n.  a  ;  Franceson,  Nuevo  Diccionario  de  las  lenguas 
espafiola  y  alemana  •  tan  completo  como  los  mejores  de  tamano 
mayor,  etc.,  1st  edit.  1829-33,  says  in  the  preface  :  "Aun- 
que tenia  la  docta  Alemania  varios  diccionarios  portatiles 
de  las  demas  lenguas  cultas  de  la  Europa,  de  la  francesa, 
italiana,  y  inglesa,  le  faltaba  todavia  &  este  pais  un  dic- 
cionario  de  aquel  ge'nero  :  etc.";  cf.  2nd  edition. 

4 Other  editions  of  this  work  are  :  Tesoro,  etc.,  Geneve, 
1609,  4to.,  two  parts  ;  Derniere  edition  .  .  .  augrnente'e, 
Cologni  (sic)  1637,  4to.,  three  parts;  another,  Cologne, 
1671,  showing  that  it  was  much  used  ;  these  are  in  the 
British  Museum. 


24 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


perhaps,  by  the  source  he  used — are  the  follow- 
ing :  ' '  exemplar,  exemplaire,  patron  sur  lequel 
on  fait  quelque  ouurage,  essempio,  modello, 
mostra  di  qualche  cosa  da  fare,"  followed  by 
exemplar  castigo,  intended  to  illustrate  its  use  as 
an  adjective  also;  (cf.  his  translation  'Neue 
Beispiele  '  for  '  novelas  exemplares. ' ) — "  Valor, 
valeur,  prix,  valore,  pretio,  valuta ' ' ;  Lessing  has 
stretched  this  to  "  inuerer  Werth,"  a  possible 
translation,  in  this  place,  p.  20,  but  better  as 
'  valor, '  '  gallantry. '  Some  definitions  of  the  Te- 
soro  are  wholly  incorrect  :  "  malograr,  detester* 
detestare,  maledire." — "  Seguro  "  (a  noua  in  the 
text,  p.  14)  is  given  only  as  an  adjective. — "  Fi- 
neza,"  '  act  of  courtesy,'  or  '  friendly  zeal,'  is  ren- 
dered as  ' '  finesse,  perfection,  excellence,  acutezza, 
perfettione,  eccellentia,"  which  do  not  fit  Lessing' s 
text. — "El para  bien,"  is  printed  as  two  words 
(cf.  p.  11).  Considering  the  date  of  this  dic- 
tionary, however,  it  has  some  merit,  and  we  are 
bound  to  admit  that  it  could  have  suggested  to 
Lessing — if  it  was  among  those  which  he  knew — 
a  closer  definition  of  certain  words  than  he  saw 
fit  to  give.  But  in  the  translation  of  idiomatic 
phrases,  the  Tesoro  could  render  little  or  no  assist- 
ance, especially  to  a  novice. 

The  title  of  the  little  grammar  runs  as  follows  : 

Deutsch-Spanischer  Richtiger  und  Regul-massi- 
ger  Sprach-Zeiger/  vorstellend  Wie  man  nicht  nur 
diese  Helden-Sprache  recht  aussprechen  und  decli- 
nirenj  soudern  auch  bey  denen  vorfallenden  Be- 
gebenheiten/  als  auf  der  Reis/  Wirths-Hausern/ 
Assembleen,  und  Zusammenku'nften/  Ball-  oder 
andern  Spielen  u.  d.  gl.  in  Gespracheu  sich  ver- 
halten/  anbey  Frag  und  Antwordt  geben  soil ; 
Allen  denenjenigen/  so  zu  Erlernung  der  Spani- 
schen  Sprache  nicht  viel  Zeit  u'brig  haben/  doch 
Amts  und  Verrichtungs  oder  Wohl stands  wegen 
etwas  wissen  miissen/  hochst-nutzlicb/  In  diesem 
bequemen  Format  mit  vielen  1000.  Wortern/  Re- 
dens- Arten  und  Gespriichen  heraus  gegeben  von 
A.  P.  (?)  K.  Niirnberg/  verlegts  Johann  Leon- 
hard  Buggel.  Anno  1712.,  12mo.6 

A  short  preface  urging  the  reader  to  learn  Span- 
ish is  followed  by  some  suggestions  on  the  pronun- 

6  This  little  book  was  probably  intended  as  a  companion 
to  a  "Latein-  und  Teutscher  Sprachzeiger,"  Niirnberg-Bug- 
gel,  1711  ?  12mo.  Cf.  T.  Georgi,  AUgem.  Europ.  Bucher- 
Lexicon,  1742.  The  Oesprdche  were  modeled  by  the  com- 
piler on  the  Dialogues  of  Philippe  Gamier,  of  which  there 
were  editions  in  Italian  and  French  :  1  guatro  dialogi, 


ciatioii  ;  then  comes  an  explanation  of  the  forms 
of  nouns  and  adjectives  with  paradigms  of  their 
declensions  after  the  classical  manner  ;  finally, 
after  treating  the  pronouns  very  briefly,  the  author 
leaves  the  grammatical  part  of  his  book  without  a 
word  on  the  verbs,  saying  :  ' '  [wir  wollen]  aller 
WeitlaufFtigkeit  zu  entgehen/  die  Verba  mit  ein- 
ander  weg  lassen."  Then  follow  various  lists  of 
nouns  in  groups,  and  finally  the  Gesprdche.  Thus 
this  Grammar,  which,  with  all  of  its  sins  of  omis- 
sion and  commission,  attempted  to  popularize 
Spanish,  deserves  brief  mention  for  two  reasons. 
In  the  first  place,  it  could  have  been  of  no  assist- 
ance whatsoever  to  anyone  in  construing  sentences. 
Now  Lessing' s  work  shows  that  he  was  especially 
weak  in  rendering  difficult  constructions  which 
turned  on  the  form  and  meaning  of  a  verb  ;  there- 
fore, such  grammars  as  this  could  give  him  no 
light  where  he  needed  it  most.  To  be  sure,  it  will 
probably  never  be  known  how  and  with  what 
assistance  he  learned  such  Spanish  as  he  possessed  ; 
nevertheless,  it  is  possible  that  the  ' '  conversation 
in  Spanish ' '  which  he  carried  on  with  his  friend 
Mylius  while  walking  "uiiter  den  Linden  "  (al- 
luded to  by  Karl  Lessing)  was  merely  an  attempt 
to  practice  (  "  er  plauderte  zur  Uebung  ' ' )  such 
Gesprache  as  are  given  in  the  Sprachzeiger.  In 
the  second  place,  this  work  brings  home  to  us  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  those  who,  in  the  days  of 
Lessing' s  youth,  desired  to  learn  Spanish,  and  had 
to  use  such  a  book  as  an  instrument  of  study. 

The  second  part  of  the  author's  work:  La 
nature  et  les  sources  de  I' hispanisme  de  Lessing, 
has  twenty-nine  subdivisions  followed  by  an  ap- 
pendix ;  the  material  is  given  in  chronological 
order,  and  treats  individually  the  subjects  of  a 
Spanish  character  in  any  way  touched  upon  by 
Lessing.  Some  of  his  sources,  hitherto  unknown, 
have  been  traced  with  great  perseverance.  The 
date  of  an  occasional  article  being  still  a  matter 
of  dispute,  it  remains  for  Lessingforscher  to  deter- 
mine it.  The  more  important  divisions  are  the 
following  :  Montiano,  p.  84,  the  source  of  which  is 

(Phil.  Garnerius)  Parigi,  1627  ;  Dialogues  en  qualre  lan- 
gues,  fran$oise,  espagnole,  italienne  et  jlamende  par  P.  G. , 
etc.,  Amsterdam,  1656;  Dialogues  en  cinq  langues,  Espag- 
nolle,  Italienne,  Latine,  Franfaise,  et  Allemande,  etc.,  Stras- 
bourg, 1659.  Cf.  also  Stengel,  Chronologisches  Verzeichnis 
franz.  Orammatiken  vom  Ende  des  14-  bis  zum  Ausganye  des 
18.  Jahrh.,  Oppeln,  1890,  p.  33. 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


25 


an  article  in  the  Journal  des  Scavans.  The  author 
condemns  the  very  youthful  Lessing  for  his 
"shameless  plagiarism,"  a  term  too  severe  in 
connection  with  a  piece  of  hack  work  which  was 
merely  the  brief  announcement  of  a  new  book.  In 
the  minor  articles  Guevara,  p.  94,  Aleman,  p.  96, 
Novelas  Ejemplares,  p.  103,  and  others,  much 
erudite  bibliographical  matter  is  given,  making 
evident  some  of  the  defects  of  Lessing' s  learning. 
But  it  is  excessive  to  condemn  the  youthful  critic 
for  not  having  the  information  of  the  modern 
scholar.  The  author  also  shows  very  well  in  some 
of  these  briefer  discussions,  that  on  the  strength  of 
an  occasional  mere  reference  to  something  Spanish, 
more  credit  has  been  given  to  Lessing  than  he  de- 
served. The  Huarte,  p.  113,  has  numerous  new 
bibliographical  details,  but  is  much  spoiled  by 
digressions  and  unsifted  erudition.  To  the  author's 
strictures  on  Lessing' s  translation  the  objection 
may  again  be  urged,  that  Lessing' s  youth  explains 
many  of  his  shortcomings  ;  that  it  is  asking  a  great 
deal  of  Lessing  (in  1751-2)  to  add  "  une  discus- 
sion serree  et  precise  de  la  signification  philosoph- 
ique  et  culturelle  de  [Juan  Huarte]"  (p.  119). 
Lessing' s  condemnation  of  the  Latin  version  of 
Joachim  Csesar  was  so  severe  that  it  would  have 
been  instructive  to  give  some  details,  by  way  of 
comparison,  to  show  how  much  better  the  trans- 
lation by  Lessing  is  than  the  Latin  version.  The 
author  finds,  after  a  careful  examination  of  all 
previous  versions,  that  the  translation  by  Lessing 
betrays  no  imitation  of  the  others  ;  he  gives  in  the 
following  sentence  a  fair  appreciation  of  the  Ger- 
man work:  "C'est  une  composition  besogueuse 
et  laborieuse,  dont  les  fautes  resultent  surtout  de 
1' ignorance  ou  se  trouve  le  traducteur  des  tour- 
nures  specifiques  et  des  habitudes  genuines  du 
parler  castillan,  etc.,"  (p.  5).  The  article  Gra- 
cidn,  p.  135,  does  not  show  whether  Lessing  did 
or  did  not  know  the  Spanish  writer,  and  is  mostly 
gratuitous.  In  Montiano  et  la  Virginia,  p.  144, 
the  author  reprints  the  source  of  Lessing' s  account 
of  Montiano,  from  the  '*  Theatralische  Biblio- 
thek,"  showing  how  freely  the  German  critic  used 
the  preface  to  D'Hermilly 's  French  version  of  the 
Spanish  writer.  Lessing  is  again  accused  of 
plagiarism,  although  he  did  make  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  indebtedness.  The  author's  procedure 
is  misleading,  to  say  the  least,  for  he  breaks  off  his 


quotation  from  Lessing,  p.  145,  just  before  the 
following:  "Der  eine  Band  (of  D'Hermilly)  ent- 
halt  die  erste  der  angefuhrten  Abhandlungen  iiber 
die  Spanischen  Tragodien,  und  der  andere  eine 
abgekiirzte  Uebersetzung  der  Virginia ;  beyden  ist 
ein  historisches  Register  der  in  der  Abhandlung 
erwahnten  Verfasser  zur  Helfte  beigefugt,  welches 
eine  Arbeit  des  Herrn  Hermilly  ist.  Eben  diesem 
habe  ich  auch  die  angefuhrten  Lebensumstande  des 
Spanischen  Dichters  zu  danken,  die  ihm  dieser 
selbst  uberschrieben  hat,  etc. ' ' 6  Thus  the  reprint- 
ing of  the  biography  of  Montiano  by  D'Hermilly 
side  by  side  with  that  of  Lessing  would  become 
justifiable  only  through  a  clear  and  fair  presenta- 
tion of  Lessing' s  case,  which  cannot  be  character- 
ized and  dismissed  with  the  word  "  plagiarism."  7 
Under  Eraclio  und  Argila,  p.  157,  and  Fenix,  p. 
166,  the  author  discusses  these  two  fragments  of 
translations  from  the  Spanish,  giving  a  resume1  of 
the  original  of  the  former,  with  numerous  biblio- 
graphical details  of  value.  He  attributes  to  these 
fragments  a  much  later  date  (1760-65)  than  do 
such  authorities  as  Muncker,  who  dates  them  about 
1750.  The  latter  date  seems  more  tenable  in  the 
absence  of  better  evidence  for  the  former.  The 
author  also  blames  the  Lessing f or  scher  for  not 
utilizing  the  contributions  of  Albrecht  who  had 
pointed  out  the  sources  of  Lessing  in  1890 ;  in  the 
first  place,  Muncker' s  volume  which  reprints  the 

6Cf.  Muncker' s  edition  of  Lessing' s  works,  VI,  p.  72. 

7  Furthermore,  in  1754  Lessing's  opinion  of  the  Virginia 
of  Montiano  was  very  favorable ;  in  1767  (Hamburg.  Dra- 
mat. )  he  spoke  slightingly  of  it :  korrekt,  regelmassig, 
frostig,  are  his  words.  This  change  the  author  attributes 
to  the  influence  of  Dieze.  Now  the  latter,  on  p.  265  of 
his  translation  of  Velazquez  has  the  following  high  praise 
for  Montiano;  "[seine  beyden  vortrefflichen  Trauer- 
spiele]  verdienen  den  Beyfell,  den  sie  bey  dem  aufge- 
klilrtesten  Theile  der  Spanier  gefunden  haben.  .  .  .  Nicht 
allein  im  Drama,  soudern  auch  in  andern  Arten  von  Ge- 
dichten  ist  Don  Agustin  de  Montiano  ein  grosser  Dich- 
ter."  But  on  p.  373,  Dieze  calls  these  same  plays  "die 
regelmiissigsten  .  .  .  die  die  Spanier  haben,"  and  adds  : 
"  Sie  sind  ganz  nach  franzosischjm  Schnitte,"  the  whole 
of  the  latter  passage  being  quoted  by  the  author,  p.  151. 
But  to  get  around  the  priority  of  Lessing's  printed  state- 
ment, he  says  :  "  le  passage  sur  Montiano  .  .  .  n'est  sans 
doute  que  la  transcription  des  remontrances  amicales 
adress^es  &  Lessing."  This  arbitrary  assumption  makes 
the  influence  of  Dieze  upon  Lessing  (by  letter)  possible, 
without  considering  the  chance  that  it  may  have  been  the 
other  way  about. 


26 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


fragments  is  dated  1887,  a  fact  not  made  evident 
in  the  author's  censure  of  Lessing's  editor;  in  the 
second  place,  the  manner  and  the  methods  of  Al- 
brecht  were  bound  to  discredit  most  of  his  results. 
The  article  on  the  play  Essex,  p.  169,  gives  a 
resume"  of  the  known  facts  about  this  Spanish 
comedia  and  shows  that  most  of  them  were  un- 
known to  Lessing.  Although  the  author  again 
goes  to  extremes  in  calling  the  exposition  of  el 
Conde  de  Sex  "plates  elucubrations, "  he  is  justi- 
fied in  finding  Lessing's  criticism  of  the  play,  as 
well  as  his  analysis  of  Spanish  dramatic  principles, 
scant  and  inadequate — though  we  are  bound  to 
add — in  the  light  of  what  we  know  to-day.  More- 
over, there  is  no  need  of  characterizing  Lessing's 
very  succinct  description  of  the  comedia  as  "  pla- 
giarism " ;  his  ideas  are  expressed  in  phrases  more 
or  less  common  among  those  who  have  given  their 
opinion  on  the  Spanish  stage,  and  to  any  cultured 
reader  such  phrases  as  "sinnreiche  Verwick- 
lung, "  ' '  Theaterstreiche, "  "  Wiirde, ' '  etc. ,  might 
suggest  themselves.  Pp.  185  ff.  contain  a  valuable 
contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  the  extent  to 
which  the  Spanish  drama  was  translated  and  ap- 
preciated outside  of  Spain  during  the  eighteenth 
century.  Yet  the  presentation  of  these  facts 
weakens  the  author's  position  on  Lessiug;  in 
France,  we  learn,  efforts  to  incline  the  people's 
taste  toward  the  comedia  were  frustrated  by  the 
indifference  of  the  public  ;  in  Germany,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  appreciation  of  certain  qualities  of 
Spanish  literature  took  root  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  became  a  definite  influence  on  German 
thought.  The  part  played  in  this  connection  by 
Lessing  is  incontrovertible,  and  the  author's  at- 
tempt to  put  Johann  Andreas  Dieze  into  his  place 
as  the  first  '  Hispanist '  of  Germany,  clouds  the 
issue.  It  may  be  asserted  that  Dieze  knew  very 
much  more  of  Spanish  literature  and  bibliography 
than  Lessing  ;  that  ' '  he  has  the  merit  of  having 
called  attention  to  the  prototypes  and  of  speaking 
of  them  appreciatively"  (p.  199);  yet  this  does 
not  change  the  fact  that  the  influence  of  Lessing 
was  incomparably  greater.  It  is  futile  to  insist  for 
a  moment  that  Dieze' s  translation  of  Velazquez 
with  annotations  ("die  Velazquez' sche  Arbeit 
fast  ersaufend,  aber  auch  erganzend  " — Ticknor- 
Julius)  ever  rises  to  the  level  upon  which  Lessing's 
virile  exposition  stands.  Dieze' s  book  could  never 


have  furthered  any  rising  interest  in  Spanish  by 
the  repellant  character  of  his  pages,  by  his  aimless 
method  of  pocketing  bits  of  information  or  biblio- 
graphy in  the  notes  which  the  ordinary  reader  was 
sure  to  disregard.  Of  his  work  the  greatest  His- 
panist, Ferdinand  Wolf,  has  left  no  uncertain 
opinion,  calling  it  a  book  "  dessen  nach  einem 
ausserst  mangelhaften  und  einseitigen  Plan  und 
ohne  alien  kritischen  und  pragmatischen  Geist 
verfasstes  Original  durch  die  allerdings  grosse  Be- 
lesenheit  des  gelehrten  Uebersetzers  nur  wenig  ge- 
wann."  8  Of  Lessing's  work,  on  the  ether  hand, 
in  which  his  liispanisme,  deficient,  and  even  second 
hand,  as  it  was  at  times,  has  a  part,  Goethe  said 
to  Eckermann  :  ' '  Lessing  wollte  den  hohen  Titel 
eines  Genies  ablelmen,  allein  seine  dauernden  Wir- 
kungen  zeugen  wider  ihn  selber."  Science  of  to- 
day may  disclose  his  relatively  meager  equipment 
in  Hispanic  matters,  but  the  amount  of  his  definite 
achievement  cannot  be  thereby  appreciably  re- 
duced. 

Pp.  202  ff.  deal  with  Lessing's  discussion  of 
Lope  de  Vega's  A rte  nuevo  de  hacer  comedias, 
wherein,  according  to  the  author,  he  makes  evident 
"son  ignorance  de  details  Clemen taires  de  littera- 
ture  espagnole. ' '  Then  follows  a  very  good  biblio- 
graphical study  of  the  Arte  nuevo  and  its  appear- 
ance outside  of  Spain,  touching  also  upon  related 
theories  of  dramatic  art,  with  the  conclusion  that 
Lessing's  references  to  the  Arte  had  neither  novelty 
nor  originality.  Aside  from  the  evident  exaggera- 
tion of  these  strictures,  a  palpable  injustice  is  the 
criticism  of  Lessing's  version  of  an  extract  from 
the  Arte  (Hamb.  Dram.,  69tes  Stuck),  which  is 
called  "une  pretendue  traduction,  qui  n'est  en 
re'alite'  qu'une  glose  imprecise."  Lessing  nowhere 
calls  it  a  translation,  though  he  does  put  his  ver- 
sion— which  is  certainly  more  than  a  glose  impre- 
cise— into  quotation  marks.  The  following  com- 
parison will  speak  for  itself : 

Elijase  el  sujeto,  y  no  se  "Auch  Konige,  sagt  er, 

mire  konnet  ihr  in  euern  Komo- 

( Perdonen  los  preceptos)  si  dien  auftreten  lassen.  Ich 

es  de  reyes,  hore  zwar,  dass  unser  wei- 

Aunque  por  esto  entiendo  ser  Monarch  (Philipp  der 

que  el  prudente  Zweite)  dieses  nicht  gebil- 

Filipo,  rey  de  Espana  y  ligt ;  es  sei  nun,  weil  er 

seiior  nuestro,  einsah,  dass  es  wider  die 


8Cf.  Studien,  etc.,  Berlin,  1859,  p.  1. 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


27 


En  viendo  un  rey  en  ellas 

se  enfadava, 
O  fuesse  el  ver  que  al  arte 

contradize, 
O  que  la  autoridad  real  no 

deve 
Andar  fingida  entre  la  hu- 

milde  plebe. 
Esto  es  bolver  a  la  comedia 

antigua, 
Donde  vemos,  que  Plauto 

puso  Dioses, 
Como  en    su   Anfitrion  lo 

muestra  Jupiter. 
Sabe  Dios,  que  me  pesa  de 

aprobarlo, 
Porque  Plutarco,  hablando 

de  Menandro, 

No  siente  bien  de  la  co- 
media antigua. 
Mas  pues  del  arte   varaos 

tan  remotos, 
Y  en   Espafia  le  hazemos 

mil  agravios, 
Cierren  los  doctos  esta  vez 

los  labios. 
Lo    tragico,    y    lo    comico 

mezclado, 
Y    Terencio    con    Seneca, 

aunque  sea, 
Como    otro   Minotauro  de 

Pasifae, 
Haran    grave    una    parte, 

otra  ridicula, 
Que  aquesta  variedad  de- 

leyta  mucho. 
Buen  exemplo  nos  da  na- 

turaleza, 
Que  por  tal  variedad  tiene 

belleza. 


Regeln  laufe,  oder  weil  er 
es  der  Wiirde  eines  Konigs 
zuwider  glaubte,  so  mit 
unter  den  Pobel  gemengt 
zu  werden.  Ich  gebe  auch 
gern  zu,  dass  dieses  wieder 
zur  iiltesten  Komodie  zu- 
riickkehren  heisst,  dieselbst 
Gutter  einfiihrte  ;  wie  unter 
andern  in  dem  Amphitruo 
des  Plautus  zu  selien  :  und 
ich  weiss  gar  wohl,  dass 
Plutarcb,  wenn  er  von  Me- 
nandern  redet,  die  alteste 
Komodie  nicht  sehr  lobt. 
Es  fallt  mir  also  frei- 
lich  schwer,  unsere  Mode 
zu  billigen.  Aber  da  wir 
uns  nun  einmal  in  Spanien 
so  weit  von  der  Kunst  ent- 
fernen  :  so  miissen  die  Ge- 
lehrten  schon  auch  hier- 
uber  schweigen.  Es  ist 
wahr,  das  Komische  mit 
deni  Tragischen  vermischt, 
Seneca  mit  dem  Terenz  zu- 
sammengeschmolzen,  giebt 
kein  geringeres  Ungeheuer, 
als  der  Minotaurus  der  Pa- 
siphae  war.  Doch  diese  Ab- 
wechselung  gefiillt  nun  ein- 
mal ;  man  will  nun  einmal 
keine  andere  Stiicke  sehen, 
als  die  halb  ernsthaft  und 
halb  lustig  sind  ;  die  Natur 
selbst  lehrt  uns  diese  Man- 
nigfaltigkeit,  von  der  sie 
einen  Teil  ihrer  Schonheit 
entlehnt." 


The  author's  conclusion  :  "II  reste  que  Lessing 
n'a  rien  compris  a  ce  document,  comme  il  ne  salt 
rien  de  1'art  de  Lope,"  p.  215,  is  purely  arbitrary. 
On  various  minor  matters,  such  as  the  Gracioso, 
p.  216,  the  glosa,  p.  218,  the  supposed  indebted- 
ness of  the  Haupt-  und  Staatsaktionen  to  Spanish 
models,  p.  221,  etc.,  the  author  makes  his  point, 
and  shows  that  Lessing  was  meagerly  informed  ; 
that  some  of  his  inaccuracy  is  due  to  his  repetition 
of  statements  found  elsewhere.  On  various  occa- 
sions, hitherto  unknown  sources  of  some  of  Les- 
sing' s  material  have  been  traced  with  perseverance 
and  good  fortune.  Ex.,  pp.  77,  257,  269,  and  no- 
tably the  article  on  the  Alcalde  de  Zalamea,  p.  272. 
Where  Lessing' s  source  is  unknown,  it  is  arbitrary 
to  surmise  that  it  must  have  been  French. 


To  resume,  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  the 
first  part  are,  that  Lessing' s  acquaintance  with  the 
Spanish  language  was  much  less  comprehensive 
than  has  hitherto  been  taken  for  granted  ;  and, 
from  the  second  part,  that  much  of  his  information 
or  erudition  in  Hispanic  matters  was  gleaned  from 
intermediate  sources,  conclusions  which  may  be 
accepted  with  the  qualification  that  Spanish  and 
Spanish  literature  were  little  cultivated  in  Les- 
sing's  day,9  and  that  Lessing,  who  never  boasted 
of  his  hispanisme,  had  neither  adequate  instru- 
ments to  resort  to,  nor  any  scientific  method  to 
guide  him. 

A  great  deal  of  the  erudition  displayed  in  the 
book  is  not  germane  to  the  subject,  while  some 
interesting  bibliographical  material  is  safely  buried 
in  both  text  and  notes.  The  style,  which  is  often 
trying,  becomes  at  times  harsh,  cumbersome  and 
unrestrained.  Cf.  for  ex.  sentences  pp.  x,  xi,  and 
199. 

Having  now  spoken  of  the  contribution  which 
this  work  makes  to  the  subject,  it  remains  for  me 
to  touch  upon  its  readableness.  No  one  will  deny 
a  writer  praise  for  speaking  the  truth  fearlessly, 
but  who  will  listen  to  it,  when  every  principle  of 
moderation  and  propriety  is  thrown  to  the  winds  ? 
The  presentation  of  the  case  of  Lessing  develops 
into  an  intemperate  attack  through  the  repetition 
of  dozens  of  phrases  like  the  following  :  ' '  Celui 
qui  ne  comprend  pas,  c'est  Lessing,  qui  n'entrevoit 
Essex  qu'a  travers  les  verres  fumes  de  I'Auf  kid- 
rung,  p.  24;  [Lessiug]  a  termini  ses  arides  excur- 
sions de  cabinet  tras  los  monies  comme  il  les  avait 
inaugurees  :  en  Stumper"  (p.  34);  "  un  contre- 
sens  de  can  ere  "  (p.  62).  Countless  digressions 
filled  with  generalities  and  personalities  spare 
neither  Lessing  for  seller  nor  Hispanic  scholars  : 

9  This  statement  is  supported  by  the  competent  Dieze 
himself  in  his  Geschichte,  etc.,  called  by  the  author  "une 
ceuvre  d' extraordinaire  meYite,"  p.  151  ;  he  says  :  "Man 
lebt  nicht  allein  in  einer  ganzlichen  Unwissenheit  [der 
spanischen  Literatur],  man  ist  auch  so  gleichgiiltig,  dass 
man  sich  nicht  einmal  die  Miihe  giebt,  zu  untersuchen,  ob 
sie  unsere  Achtung  verdiene,  ja  man  ist  wohl  gar  so  un- 
gerecht,  sie  ohne  Priifung  schlechterdings  zu  verachten. 
Die  Schwiirigkeiten,  gelehrte  Nachrichten  von  den  Span- 
iern  zu  erhalten,  die  Seltenheit  ihrer  Schriften  unter  uns, 
die  bey  uns  gam  verloschene  Kenntniss  ihrer  Sprache,  doch 
mehr  als  alle  diese  Umstiinde,  unsere  Vorurtheile  haben 
vieles  beygetragen,  dass  die  spanische  Literatur  gtinzlich 
vernachliissiget  wird."  Vorrede. 


28 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


"M.  E.  Schmidt  dSfinit  I'Examen  :  'das  emslg 
gefeilte  Buch.'  Notons,  en  passant,  .  .  .  qu'on 
ne  saurait  en  dire  autant  de  certains  ouvrages  qui 
se  reclament  du  contr61e  litteraire  de  M.  E. 
Schmidt,  tel  ce  Kaiser  V/ilhelm  und  die  Begrun- 
dung  des  Reiehes  .  .  .  duprof.  Lorenz,  I'ex-gar9on 
de  laboratoire  du  broyeur  de  poisons  historiques 
que  fut  le  due  Ernst,  etc."  (p.  117  and  n.  2); 
"logique  de  Geli.  Regierungsrat"  (p.  147); 
"Cette  besogne  eut  e"te  pour  le  professeur  de  lit- 
terature  allemande  de  1' University  de  Berlin  au 
moins  aussi  aisee  a  mener  a  bonne  fin  que  la  con- 
struction de  certain  de  ses  discours — tel,  pour  nous 
borner  au  dernier  etc."  (p.  159) ;  "  II  est  amusant 
d' observer  que  pas  plus  M.  R.  Beer  que  M. 
Fitzrnaurice-Kelly  ne  sont  capable  de  parler  ex- 
acternent  etc.,"  (apropos  of  a  date,  p.  66  n. ); 
"I'optiniisme  voloutaire  de  M.  A.  Farinelli  "  (p. 
197);  "Un  certain  W.  W.  Comfort  a  cependant 
cru  devoir  '  r£conforter '  de  son  approbation  les 
elucubrations  de  Salillas  etc."  (p.  118  n. );  ["le 
jugement  de  Lessing  sur  Lope]  que  M.  A.  Morel- 
Fatio,  pour  n' avoir  lu  que  le  ch.  69  de  la  Drama- 
turgie  .  .  .  et  nous  ne  savons  si  le  passage  de  M. 
Morel-Fatio  n'est  pas  alle  contaminer  le  Dr.  R. 
Beer  a  deux  ans  de  distance — a  cru,  lui  aussi, 
devoir  vanter  etc."  (p.  214);  "  ce  chauvin  de 
Schack — qui,  ons'en  souviendra,  fut  fait  coniteen 
1876  par  1'empereur  allemand,  auquel  il  a  legue 
ses  tableaux  etc."  (p.  199);  "mais  quelle  bizarre 
logique  que  celle,  parfois,  du  '  peuple  des  pen- 
seurs  '  "  (p.  180) ;  "  D'autres  Lessingforscher  ont 
recours  a  de  moins  ingenues  periphrases  pour 
masquer  leur  ignorance"  (p.  103,  n.  2)  ;  and  lest 
anyone  might  be  omitted,  all  those  who  are  shocked 
by  the  author's  "fapon  d' entendre  la  besogne 
scientifique, ' '  are  characterized  as  ' '  faux  bronzes  de 
litterature  "  (cf.  Reprint  from  Vragen  etc.,  p.  2). 
Finally,  while  the  tone  of  such  phrases  as  ' '  On 
aurait  le  droit  de  demander  a  M.  Menendez  y 
Pelayo  s'il  parle  en  son  nom  propre  quand  il  for- 
mule  ce  jugement,  .  .  .  ou  s'il  n'est  que  Pe'cho  im- 
personnel  de  ces  erreurs  etc.,"  (p.  177),  needs  no 
comment;  while  the  frequent  use  of  "plagiat," 
"elucubrations,"  "  banality's, "  "latnentables  pla- 
titudes, "  "  gallophobie, "  "  ignorance, "  "  1'  hyp- 
nose  lessiugophile,"  may  be  set  down  to  bad 
taste ;  and,  while  the  mental  attitude  displayed  in 
innumerable  indiscriminate  slurs  upon  eminent 
men — dead  no  less  than  living — must  turn  readers 


away  from  the  book,  one  grave  procedure  stands 
out  above  the  rest.  It  is  that  of  asking  a  distin- 
guished authority  for  information  by  letter,  and 
then  printing  the  reply  without  permission  and 
with  exclamation  points  and  with  "(sic)."  (Cf. 
pp.  xiii,  102,  175,  and  Reprint,  p.  38). 

After  all  this,  what  becomes  of  the  sincerity  of 
that  citation  in  the  preface,  in  which,  as  it  seems, 
we  are  urged  "einander  freundschaftlich  die 
Hande  zu  reichen?" 

The  conclusion  on  the  work  as  a  whole  then  is  : 
while  it  makes  some  contributions  of  value  to  our 
knowledge  of  Lessing' s  hispanisme,  it  concedes  to 
that  field  of  his  activities  too  much  importance  in 
proportion  to  his  other  ' '  dauernde  Wirkungen' ' ; 
it  has  defeated  its  own  purpose,  in  being  in  no 
sense  a  readable  book. 

Poca  hiel  amarga  mucha  miel. 

RUDOLPH  SCHEVILL. 

University  of  California. 


Chevalerie  Vivien.  Facsimile  phototypes  of  the 
Sancti  Bertini  manuscript  of  the  Biblioth6que 
Municipale  of  Boulogne-sur-Mer,  with  an  in- 
troduction and  notes  by  RAYMOND  WEEKS. 
Published  by  the  University  of  Missouri,  1909 
[The  University  of  Missouri  Studies  :  Literary 
and  Linguistic  Series,  vol.  i] . 

Le  manuscrit  no.  192  de  la  Biblioth£que  Mu- 
nicipale de  Boulogne-sur-Mer  offre  en  general 
(comme  on  sait)  pour  les  chansons  du  cycle  de 
Guillaume  qu'il  renferme  une  redaction  plus  ou 
moius  diffe"rente  de  celles  que  nous  ont  conserves 
les  autres  manuscrits  cy cliques.  Jusqu'ici  6di- 
teurs  et  critiques  se  sont  a  1' ordinaire  bornes  a 
signaler  cette  divergence  sans  en  chercher  1' ex- 
plication. M.  Weeks  vient  de  faire  plus  et  mieux  : 
pour  1'une  de  ces  chansons  (la  Chevalerie  Vivien) 
il  nous  donne  en  24  planches  la  reproduction  pho- 
totypique — aussi  parfaite  qu'il  est  souhaitable — 
des  feuillets  du  manuscrit  (81  v° — 93  r°)  qui  la 
contiennent,  et  il  a  dote"  cette  splendide  publica- 
tion d'une  introduction  pre"cieuse  ou  se  trouvent 
examines  de  pr6s  les  passages  principaux  ou  la  re"- 
daction  de  Boulogne  se  sSpare  du  reste  de  la  tra- 
dition manuscrite. 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


29 


Dans  un  article  ante'rieur,1  M.  Weeks  reconnais- 
sait  en  la  plupart  de  ces  passages  (v.  40-45  :  al- 
lusion aux  Enfances  Vivien  ;  v.  113  :  souvenir 
<T  Aliscans  ;  v.  192-194  :  mention  de  Rainouart; 
v.  950-1070  :  Episodes  du  paien  enferm6  dans  le 
chateau  et  de  Gaudin  et  Guielin  refusant  d'aller 
a  Orange  ;  v.  1205-1244  :  arrived  a  Orange  de 
Guichardin,  freTe  de  Vivien  ;  v.  1418-1438  : 
adoubernent  de  Guichardin)  des  additions  dues  a 
un  reraanieur  picard,2  poete  aussi  mediocre  que 
versificateur  maladroit ;  il  voyait  par  centre,  dans 
les  v.  129-165  (detail  des  expeditions  de  Vivien 
en  Espagne  :  prise  de  Barcelone,  Balesgues, 
Tourtoulouse,  Portpaillart  sur  mer),  le  souvenir 
— e"galement  remanie" — d'une  tradition  ancienue. 

L' introduction  de  la  pre"seute  publication  difiere 
tres  peu  de  cet  article.  M.  Weeks  a  simpleraent 
ajoute  de  braves  observations  sur  le  manuscrit  de 
Berne  (qui  contient  aussi  une  redaction  particu- 
liere  dupoSme,  spe"cialement  au  debut);  en  outre, 
il  reconnait  egalement  une  addition  du  remanieur 
dans  les  v.  129-165  (Barcelone,  Balesgues,  Tour- 
toulouse, Portpaillart  sur  mer  ont  &£  conquises 
par  presque  tous  les  heros  du  cycle) ;  un  seul  pas- 
sage (v.  1783-1792  :  rencontre  de  Guichard  et 
de  Vivien)  pourrait,  lui  semble-t-il,  £tre  aussi 
bien  primitif  qu'intercale  par  le  remanieur. — En 
terminant  il  propose — avec  raison — de  lire  en 
quelques  endroits  *  un  peu  autrement  que  je  ne 
1'aifait. 

Je  ne  puis  ici  discuter  en  detail  1' opinion  de  M. 
Weeks,  qui  est — au  total — la  mienne  :  on  trouvera 
dans  le  second  volume  de  mon  edition  toute  une 


1  Voir  The  Modern  Language  Review,  v,  no.  1  (1910),  p_ 
54-67. — Les  nume"ros  des  vers  que  je  cite  renvoient  au 
premier  volume  de  raon  Edition  (La  Chevalerie  Vivien,  I. 
Textes,  Paris,  1909). 

"Laseule  laisse  pure  en  -an  (xxx)  se  trouve  dans  un 
passage  du  au  remanieur,  tandis  que  an  et  en  sont  con- 
fondus  dans  les  assonances  lorsque  le  MS.  de  Boulogne 
offre  un  texte  parallele  aux  autres  MSS.  ;  Vivien  assonne  en 
-an  au  v.  154'J  (commun  a  tous  les  MSS. ),  mais  en  -ie  dans 
les  parties  spe*ciales  au  MS.  de  Boulogne. 

8Au  v.  1096  (notes  sur  le  texte  du  MS.)  Nen  est  une 
faute  d' impression  pour  N'en,  de  me*me  au  v.  1768  dis  au 
lieu  de  di.  La  seule  observation  de  M.  Weeks  importanle 
pour  le  texte  concerne  lev.  955  ou  j'ai  imprime'  par  erreur 
a  Ventour  au  lieu  de  a  I'entrer  ;  au  v.  1436,  le  MS.  e*crit 
bien  Autor  franchois,  mais  je  suis  porte"  apreferer  Antor  F. 
a  Autor  fr.  (Weeks)  &  cause  du  v.  67  (Entor  F. ),  les  deux 
passages  e"tant  caiques  Tun  sur  1'autre. 


s6rie  d' observations  linguistiques,  prosodiques  et 
me"triques  qui  la  fortifient  en  la  precisant.* 


TJie  Johns  Hopkins  University. 


A.  TERKACHER. 


' Maal  og  Minne.'  (Norske  Studier. )  Edited  by 
MAGNUS  OLSON.  1909.  Nos.  1-3.  Kristiania  : 
Aschehoug  &  Co.  Subscription  3  kr. 

Under  this  name  there  appeared  in  April,  1909, 
the  first  number  of  a  new  periodical  designed  to 
do  for  Norway  what  *  Nyare  bidrag  til  kannedom 
om  de  svenska  landsmalen  och  svenskt  folklif '  is 
doing  for  Sweden,  and,  more  particularly,  'Danske 
Studier '  for  Denmark  :  "  It  is  to  offer  contribu- 
tions toward  the  study  of  Norwegian  life,  from 
the  oldest  times  down  to  our  days.  It  will  con- 
sider as  within  its  domain  language  and  lin- 
guistic antiquities  of  all  kinds  (as  e.  g.,  names  of 
places),  the  written  literature,  folksong  and  folk- 
music,  village  law,  popular  beliefs  and  medicine, 
and  all  that  which  in  word  or  picture  contains 
reminiscences  of  ancient  customs,  whether  in  town 
or  in  country. ' ' 

Seeing  the  extraordinary  interest  taken  in  Nor- 
way in  philological  and  historical  studies,  there  is 
no  doubt  but  that  this  program  will  be  carried  out 
successfully  ;  not  only  as  to  contributors,  but  also 
as  to  readers  :  since  it  is,  very  commendably,  pro- 
posed to  have  the  articles  as  untechnical  and  read- 
able as  is  consonant  with  scientific  methods  and 
accuracy.  But,  unfortunately,  this  will,  eo  ipso, 
exclude  dialect  studies,  which  of  necessity  must 
be  technical-  and  descriptive — even  if  the  mauage- 

4M.  Weeks,  sachant  que  je  pre°parais  une  Edition  du 
poeme,  a  eu  la  delicate  attention  de  retarder  de  deux  ans 
sa  publication  ;  je  tiens  &  lui  en  expriiner  toute  ina  grati- 
tude. Je  dois  ajouter  que  nous  sommes  arrives  1'un  et 
1'autre,  au  m6me  moment,  par  des  me'thodes  differentes  et 
tout  a  fait  independamment  1'un  de  1'autre,  a  une  conclu- 
sion presque  identique ;  j'ai  signale"  en  Janvier  1910  (v. 
Annales  du  Midi,  p.  10,  n.  2)  la  contradiction  que  revele 
le  MS.  de  Boulogne  pour  le  traitement  du  nom  de  Vivien  i 
1' assonance  et  j'ai  depose"  en  Sorbonne  a  la  fin  du  m£rne 
mois  le  manuscrit  de  ma  these  compl^mentaire  (premiere 
partie  de  mon  Introduction)  ou  sont  exposees  longuement 
mes  remarques  sur  les  redactions  de  Boulogne  et  de  Berne. 
Ce  travail  est  actuellement  sous  presse. 


30 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xx vi,  No.  1. 


ment,  for  other  reasons,  have  not  been  able  to  in- 
clude them  in  their  program.  Exceedingly  little 
has  been  published  along  that  line  in  Norway, 
which  is  all  the  more  to  be  regretted  since  the 
agitators  for  '  landsmaal '  are  becoming  increas- 
ingly aggressive.  For  presenting,  as  it  does,  a 
sort  of  common  denominator,  for  the  Western 
dialects  especially,  landsmaal  is  bound  to  work 
confusion  in  the  speech  of  the  people. 

Indirectly,  the  new  periodical  also  owes  its 
origin  to  this  unfortunate  agitation.  It  is  pub- 
lished by  the  so-called  Bymaals-  or  Rigsmaals-lag, 
a  society  which,  together  with  the  Landsmaals-lag 
now  forms  the  Norske  samlag.  ' '  Both  organiza- 
tions have  the  purpose,  each  from  its  side,  to 
strengthen  and  further  Norwegian — the  lands- 
maal society  taking  the  country  dialects  for  their 
starting  point  ;  the  Bymaal  society,  the  city  dia- 
lects." '  Maal  and  Minna'  (M.  M. ),  published 
with  the  resources  of  the  latter  faction,  refrains 
from  any  propaganda,  as  is  guaranteed  already 
by  the  name  of  its  editor,  the  successor  to  the 
chair  of  Sophus  Bugge. 

It  may  not  be  amiss,  at  this  place  to  call  to 
mind  the  singularly  brilliant  line  of  men  of  genius 
who,  since  the  foundation  of  the  University  of 
Kristiania,  have  occupied  its  chair  of  Old  Norse 
philology  :  Rudolf  Keyser,  P.  A.  Munch,  Oluf 
Rygh,  Gustav  Storm,  culminating,  not  ending, 
with  Sophus  Bugge.  His  gentle  spirit  auspi- 
ciously hovers  over  the  new  undertaking. 

With  eminent  propriety,  the  first  pages  are 
given  up  to  an  important  article  by  Moltke  Moe, 
close  friend  and  frequent  collaborator  of  the  de- 
ceased, on  '  The  Mythical  Mode  of  Thought, ' 
written  in  that  delightfully  stimulating  style  and 
with  that  easy  mastery  of  his  subject  which  we 
have  learned  to  expect  from  him.  Moe  mediates 
between  the  '  Ethnological '  school  of  Lang  and 
Tylor  (who  regard  mythical  traditions  in  their 
entirety  as  common  to  the  human  race),  and  the 
(Northern)  Historic-geographic  school  of  Kaarle 
Krohn  and  Axel  Olrik  (who,  on  the  contrary, 
are  bent  on  tracing  the  origin  of  stories  and  their 
migrations  along  routes  of  civilizatory  influences). 
An  analysis  of  the  most  common  conceptions  shows 
that  the  smallest  epic  units  of  the  myth,  legend, 
etc.,  are  universally  present,  and  ever  generated 
afresh,  in  the  childlike  and  uncritical  primitive 


mind.  Even  in  their  simpler  combinations  into 
riddles  and  the  like  we  need  not  necessarily  as- 
sume borrowing.  Larger  conglomerations  into 
legends,  myths,  and  narratives  in  general  of 
course  presuppose  foreign  material.  Hence,  dif- 
ferent methods  of  investigation  are  called  for,  the 
latter  requiring  an  historic,  the  former  a  psycho- 
logic study.  At  present,  the  compilation  of  a 
lexicon  of  smallest  epic  units  is  a  desideratum  to 
furnish  a  more  solid  basis  to  either  study. 

The  second  article,  '  Concerning  Old  Norse 
Myth  and  Cult,'  by  Magnus  Olson,  exhibits  the 
same  gift  for  daring  combination  and  lucid  expo- 
sition which  renders  the  most  technical  papers  of 
Sophus  Bugge,  his  master,  a  source  of  pleasure. 
Contrary  to  him,  and  agreeing  with  Kock  and 
others,  Olson  interprets  the  wooing  of  Gerpr  by 
Freyr  (in  the  Skiruismal)  as  a  myth  symbolizing 
the  reawakening  to  life  and  fertility  of  the  wintry 
earth  by  the  divine  light  and  warmth  ;  and,  with 
the  additional  support  of  runes  in  the  stave-church 
of  Borgund  (Valdres),  recently  deciphered  by 
him,  of  East  European  popular  traditions,  and  of 
recently  unearthed  votive  tablets,  conjectures  this 
Eddie  poem  to  be  an  incantation  to  be  recited  at 
the  festivals  of  an  agrarian  Frey-cult,  in  the  man- 
ner of  the  Loddfafnismal  (Havamal  111  f. ). 

Instructive  articles,  many  of  them  of  a  remark- 
ably high  standard,  are  contributed  by  K.  Lie- 
stol,  on  the  origin  and  wanderings  of  the  ballad  of 
The  Two  Sisters  ;  F.  Gron,  on  '  Folkemedicin  i 
Setesdalen ' ;  C.  El  ling,  on  '  Fetter  Dass  og  Folke- 
melodien ' ;  A.  B.  Larsen,  on  the  use  of  preposi- 
tions with  Norwegian  names  of  places  (shown  to 
be,  secondarily,  dependent  on  the  presence,  or 
absence,  of  the  postpositive  article);  Hj.  Falk, 
on  the  origin  of  Dan.  Stue,  Germ.  Stube  ;  H. 
Logeman  (Gent),  on  the  etymology  of  Perial  and 
Fiale;  F.  Paasche,  on  Ibsen's  'Olaf  Liljekrans ' 
and  his  use  of  ballads.  A  lively  controversy — as 
yet  ancipiti  fortuua — has  sprung  up  between  M. 
Olson  and  Andreas  Hansen  on  the  problematic 
language  of  the  Sea-Finns,  according  to  the  testi-. 
mony  of  Peder  Clausson.  Space  is  reserved  at 
the  end  of  each  number  for  some  minor  articles 
and  notes  that  round  out  this  meaty  little  volume. 


LEE  M.  HOLLANDER. 


Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 


January,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


31 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
VENICE  :  THE  '  MAIDEN  CITY.  ' 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — It  has  already  been  pointed  out  by  a 
correspondent  in  the  Nation  for  August  25th  that 
Coryat  can  hardly  have  supposed  himself  to  be 
doing  anything  original,  as  Professor  Mead  sug- 
gests (J/.  L.  N.,  xxv,  174  if. ),  in  applying  the 
term  ' '  maiden  city ' '  to  Venice.  As  to  Words- 
worth's  acquaintance  with  the  phrase,  he  might 
have  found  it  used,  insisted  upon,  and  twisted 
into  all  the  conceits  it  would  bear  in  a  book  con- 
siderably more  popular  and  better  known  than 
Coryat' s.  In  sixteen  pages  of  Ho  well's  Familiar 
Letters  Venice  is  six  times  described  as  the 
' '  maiden  city "  or  ' '  virgin  city  "  in  as  many 
separate  letters  dated  from  Venice  between  April 
30  and  August  12,  1621  (pp.  62,  63,  68,  73, 
75,  78  of  Joseph  Jacobs'  reprint  of  the  1737  edi- 
tion ) .  In  one  of  these,  addrest  to  his  ' '  Dear 
Dick"  Altham  of  Gray's  Inn,  Ho  well  rings  the 
changes  upon  the  conceit  as  follows  : 

' '  I  have  now  a  good  while  since  taken  footing 
in  Venice,  this  admired  Maiden-City,  so  call'd, 
because  she  was  never  defloured  by  any  Enemy 
since  she  had  a  Being,  not  since  her  Rialto  was 
first  erected,  which  is  now  above  twelve  Ages  ago. 

"I  protest  to  you,  at  my  first  landing  I  was  for 
some  days  ravished  with  the  high  Beauty  of  this 
Maid,  with  her  lovely  Countenance.  I  admired 
her  magnificent  Buildings,  her  marvellous  Situa- 
tion, her  dainty  smooth  new  Streets,  whereon  you 
may  walk  most  days  in  the  year  in  a  Silk  Stockin 
and  Sattin-Slippers,  without  soiling  them  ;  nor 
can  the  Streets  of  Paris  be  so  foul  as  these  are 
fair.  This  beauteous  Maid  hath  been  often  at- 
tempted to  be  vitiated  ;  some  have  courted  her, 
some  bribed  her,  some  would  have  fore'  d  her,  yet 
she  hath  still  preserv'd  her  Chastity  entire  :  and 
tho'  she  hath  lived  so  many  Agea,  and  passed  so 
many  shrewd  brunts,  yet  she  continueth  fresh  to 
this  very  day  without  the  least  Wrinkle  of  old 
Age,  or  any  symptoms  of  Decay,  whereunto 
political  Bodies,  as  well  as  natural,  use  to  be 
liable.  Beside,  she  hath  wrestled  with  the  great- 
est Potentates  upon  Earth  ;  the  Emperor,  the  King 
of  France,  and  most  of  the  other  Princes  of  Chris- 
tendom, in  that  famous  League  of  Cwnbray,  would 
have  sunk  her  ;  but  she  bore  up  still  within  her 
Lakes,  and  broke  that  League  to  pieces  with  her 
Wit ;  The  Grand  Turk  hath  been  often  at  her, 
and  tho'  he  could  not  have  his  will  of  her,  yet  he 
took  away  the  richest  Jewel  she  wore  in  her 
Coronet,  and  put  it  in  his  Turban  ;  I  mean  the 
Kingdom  of  Cyprus,  the  only  Royal  Gem  she 


had  ;  he  hath  set  upon  her  Skirts  often  since,  and 
tho'  she  clos'd  with  him  sometimes,  yet  she  came 
off  still  with  her  Maidenhead  ;  tho'  some  that  envy 
her  happiness  would  brand  her  to  be  of  late  times 
a  kind  of  Concubine  to  him,  and  that  she  gives 
him  ready  Money  once  a  year  to  lie  with  her, 
which  she  minceth  by  the  name  of  Present,  tho' 
it  be  indeed  rather  a  Tribute." 


H.  M.  BELDEN. 


Columbia,  Mo. 


THE  EYES  AS  GENERATORS  OF  LOVE. 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — In  volume  x  of  Kritischer  Jahresbe- 
richt  uber  die  Fortschritte  der  Romanischen  Philo- 
logie  (herausg.  Juli  1910),  n.  p.  6,  Mr.  A.  Hilka 
expresses  himself  as  follows  with  reference  to  my 
letter  on  the  above-mentioned  subject  printed  in 
Mod.  Lang.  Notes,  1908,  pp.  126-127  :  "Zu  den 
Augen  als  Liebeszeugern  ergreift  auch  H.  R.  Lang 
das  Wort,  um  zur  Erganzung  von  MLN.,  1907, 
S.  232  fur  dies  ungemein  haufige  dichterische 
Motiv  Beispiele  aus  dem  Klassischen  Altertum — 
wobei  er  es  aber  unterlasst  auf  die  formliche  Tech- 
nik  bei  den  griechischen  Romanschriftstellern 
(vgl.  E.  Rhode,  griech.  Roman)  und  deren 
Nachahmern  eiuzugehen  —  und  aus  englischen 
Dichtungen  vor  Shakespeare,  so  aus  Gowers  Con- 
fessio  Amantis  uebst  Balladen  und  aus  Chaucers 
Romaunt  de  la  Rose  beizubringen. "  Now,  any 
careful  reader  of  my  letter  will  see  that  it  was  not, 
as  is  here  assumed,  written  with  the  object  of 
adding  a  few  more  to  the  many  familiar  examples 
of  this  theme,  but  explicitly  for  the  purpose  of 
correcting  the  theory  of  its  itinerary  among  me- 
dieval authors  laid  down  in  the  passage  I  cited 
from  a  communication  published  in  the  Mod.  Lang. 
Notes  a  few  months  before.  And  this  being  my 
only  purpose,  I  adduced  only  such  evidence  from 
classical  antiquity  and  from  pre-Shakespearean 
poets  as  bore  directly  upon  the  point  in  question, 
the  very  universality  of  the  theme  rendering  it 
unnecessary  to  do  more. 

H.  R.  LANG. 

Yale  University. 


A  NOTE  ON  WARD'S  History  of  English 
Dramatic  Literature. 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — An  interesting  example  of  an  error 
caused  through  carelessness  in  re-wording  another 
man's  summary  may  be  found  in  Ward's  account 
of  the  morality  play  Mankind  (History  of  English 
Dramatic  Literature,  2d  ed.,  Vol.  i,  p.  116). 


32 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


Mr.  Ward,  as  is  evident  from  his  statement  on 
page  113  and  from  the  second  footnote  there,  knew 
this  play  only  from  the  summary  in  Collier's  An- 
nals of  the  Stage  (2d  ed.,  Vol.  n,  p.  214).  Here 
Collier  says,  quite  correctly,  "Mankind,  weary  with 
labour,  lays  down  his  spade,  and  Tutivillus,  invis- 
ible, carries  it  off.  Mankind  goes  out  into  a  place 
called  '  the  yerde,'  but  soon  returns  and  falls  asleep 
upon  the  bare  ground.  Tutivillus  causes  him  to 
dream  that  his  friend  Mercy  is  hanged  .  .  .  Man- 
kind wakes, transformed  to  all  evil  dispositions.  .  ." 
Mr.  Ward's  statement,  based  on  this,  is  as  fol- 
lows: —  "Having  taken  away  from  the  sleeping 
Mankind  his  spade,  the  symbol  of  work,  this 
impersonation  of  the  lust  of  the  flesh  corrupts  the 
soul  of  the  sleeper  by  an  evil  dream,  from  which 
he  wakes  as  a  thorough  scoundrel."  In  thus 
representing  Mankind  as  asleep  when  the  spade 
is  stolen,  Mr.  Ward  is  in  error. 

The  revision  of  Ward's  English  Dramatic  Liter- 
ature is  dated,  by  the  preface,  July,  1898.  The 
question  arises  whether  Mr.  Ward  should  not  at 
that  time  have  been  in  possession  of  Professor 
Mauley's  reprint  of  the  text  of  Mankind  (Speci- 
mens of  the  Pre-Shakesperean  Drama,  Vol.  I, 
1897).  That  he  was  not  is  evident  from  his 
statement  (Vol.  i,  p.  113)  that  of  the  Macro 
Moralities  only  one,  which  he  specifies  (p.  113, 
footnote  3)  as  the  Castle  of  Perseverance,  had  been 
printed. 

MARGRETTA  MARTIN. 

Mount  Holyoke  College. 


"For  love  of  maide,"  and  the  two  hundred  and 
sixty-third  of  the  concluding  book  begins  ' '  O 
yonge  fresshe  folkes. ' ' 


A    BURGUNDIAN    COPY    OF    CHAUCER' S     TroiluS. 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — The  work  by  Barrois  entitled  Biblio- 
theque  Protypographique,  ou  Librairies  des  Fils 
du  roi  Jean,  Paris,  1830,  contains  as  entry  No. 
790  the  following  : — "Ung  autre  livre  en  par- 
chemin  couvert  d'ais  rouges,  intitule"  en  la  fin, 
Explicit  liber  Tiriq  Cirserd,  en  langage  anglois, 
comangant  au  second  feuillet  It  is  wel,  et  au  der- 
nier, ayongefussche."  As  No.  1964  of  the  same 
series  of  lists  appears  : — "  Uug  autre  livre  cou- 
vert de  cuir  rouge,  en  engles,  a  deux  clouans  de 
le'ton,  escript  en  rime,  comenchant  ou  second  feuil- 
let, It  is  ivel  wist,  et  finissant  ou  derrenier,  fort  loe 
of  maide."  This  latter  is  from  the  inventory  of 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy's  possessions  at  Brussels, 
made  in  1487  ;  the  former  is  from  the  Bruges 
inventory  of  1467.  Both  books,  if  two  be  meant, 
are  copies  of  Chaucer's  Troilus  and  Cressida  ;  the 
ninth  stanza  of  that  poem,  just  after  the  prologue, 
begins  "It  is  wel  wist  how  that  the  Grekes 
stronge,"  while  the  last  stanza  of  the  poem  begins 


Chicago. 


ELEANOR  PRESCOTT  HAMMOND. 


BRIEF  MENTION. 


The  appearance  of  a  tenth  edition  of  Bartsch- 
Wiese,  Chrestomathie  de  I'ancien  francais  (Leip- 
zig, Vogel,  1910)  so  soon  after  the  ninth  (1908) 
bears  witness  to  the  continued  popularity  of  a 
work  that  has  had  nearly  a  half  century  of  life. 
No  radical  changes  are  introduced  in  the  new  edi- 
tion, but  Professor  Wiese  has  utilized  recent  stu- 
dies and  editions  to  make  some  modifications  of 
detail.  The  pagination  remains  practically  un- 
changed. At  the  end,  two  lists  have  been  added, 
one  classing  the  selections  chronologically  and  the 
other  by  literary  type.  So  long  as  the  chresto- 
mathy  continues  to  be  kept  up  to  date  in  this 
effective  fashion  there  is  no  prospect  that  it  will 
be  superceded. 


Professor  Templeton's  selections  from  Dumas 
form  the  third  book  in  the  new  series  of  text- 
books for  teaching  French l  now  being  issued  by 
the  Oxford  University  Press,  under  the  general 
supervision  of  Professor  D.  L.  Savory  of  Dublin 
University.  Like  the  first  two  books  of  the  series, 
this  work  is  intended  for  use  in  teaching  by  the 
'  direct  method, '  and  is  exceedingly  well  arranged 
for  this  purpose.  Only  the  most  vivid  scenes 
are  chosen  and  these  are  taken  from  Dumas' 
principal  works,  so  that  the  student's  interest 
is  kept  up  at  every  moment ;  each  scene  is 
then  followed  by  a  questionnaire  covering  not 
only  the  subject  matter  but  also  grammatical 
forms  and  constructions,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
book  is  a  sixty-eight  page  vocabulary  with  the 
explanation  of  the  words  in  French  and  with 
the  pronunciation  of  each  word  in  phonetic 
transcription.  The  whole  series  is  very  well 
adapted  to  teaching  by  the  direct  method,  and  no 
matter  what  the  method  used,  every  teacher  will 
find  in  it  valuable  assistance  in  stimulating  the 
practical  and  conversational  side  of  his  class-room 
work  ;  it  is  perhaps  doubtful  if  the  series  could 
be  used  by  itself  as  a  complete  system  of  instruc- 
tion. 

1  Trois  semaines  en  France,  A  French  Reader,  by  L. 
Chouville,  with  questions  for  conversation  and  gram- 
matical exercises  by  Frances  M.  S.  Batchelor,  1908  ; 
Histoires  courles  et  longues,  by  L.  Chouville,  1909;  Alexan- 
dre  Dumas  (Pere),  Pages  choisies,  par  B.  L.  Templeton, 
1910. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES 


VOL.  XXVI. 


BALTIMORE,   FEBRUARY,    1911. 


No.  2. 


A  LITURGICAL  PLAY  OF  JOSEPH  AND 
HIS  BRETHREN. 

Some  years  ago,  as  an  appendix  to  Ordinaires 
de  V  figlise  Cathedrale  de  Laon,1  M.  le  Chanoine 
Ulysse  Chevalier  published  two  dramatic  texts 
from  MS.  263  of  the  Bibliothtique  de  Laon, — an 
Ordo  Prophetarum*  and  an  Ordo  Stelle,9 — each 
of  which  was  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  study 
of  a  type  of  play  already  well  known.4  MS.  263, 
however,  contains  another  dramatic  text,  —  an 
Ordo  Joseph,  treating  the  story  of  Joseph  and  his 
brethren,  — of  a  type  hitherto  unknown  to  litur- 
gical drama. 

The  manuscript  before  us  is  officially  described 
as  follows  : 

263.    In — folio  sur  ve"lin. — (Hymni  et  prosae). — 
xiiie  silcle.     Provient  de  Notre- Dame.5 

The  manuscript  is  a  Troparium-Hynarium-Pro- 
sarium  of  the  cathedral  church  of  Laon.  The 
dramatic  texts  already  mentioned 6  appear  in  the 
manuscript  in  an  unbroken  series,  as  follows  : 

1  Ordinaires  de  I'Eglise  Cathedrale  de  Laon  (xifc  et  xiiie 
sieclcs)  suivis  de  deux  My  stores  liturgiques  publies  d' aprds  les 
manuscrils  originaux  par  le  Chanoine  Ulysse  Chevalier, 
Paris,  Picard,  1897  (Bibliothtique  Liturgique,  Tome 
Sixieme). 

2 Id.,  pp.  385-389.  3Id.,  pp.  389-394. 

*See  E.  K.  Chambers,  The  Mediaeval  Stage,  Oxford, 
1903,  Vol.  II,  pp.  41-56  ;  H.  Anz,  Die  lateinischen  Ma- 
gierspiele,  Leipzig,  1905 ;  M.  Sepet,  Les  Prophctes  du 
Christ,  Paris,  1878. 

5  Catalogue  general  des  Manuscrits  des  BibliothZques 
publiques  des  Departements,  t.  i,  Paris,  1849,  p.  155. 

'The  manuscript  contains  (fol.  145r)  also  an  unimpor- 
tant version  of  the  well  known  Visitatio  Sepukhri,  fur- 
nished with  musical  notation  on  four  red  lines.  This 
text,  which  follows  immediately  upon  the  Magnificat  of 
the  First  Vespers  of  Easter,  is  as  follows  : 

In  aurora  processio  ad  Sepulchrum.  Duo  in  albis  capis 
intrant  cantantes  : 

Ardens  est  cor  nostrum. 
Angeli  ad  eos  : 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchre,  o 


(1)  Ordo  Prophetarum.  fol.  147r-149r; 

(2)  Ordo  Stelle,  fol.  149r-151r ; 

(3)  Ordo  Joseph,  fol.  151r-153T, 

None  of  these  texts  has  musical  notation. 

The  Ordo  Prophetarum  and  the  Ordo  Stelle 
were,  no  doubt,  performed  at  Christmas  and 
Epiphany,  respectively.  Although  the  manu- 
script furnishes  no  indication  as  to  the  liturgical 
associations  of  the  Ordo  Joseph,  printed  below, 
this  play  may  well  have  been  attached  to  the 
third  Sunday  of  Lent  (Dominica  in  in  Quadra- 
gesima), for  the  Lessons  of  Matins  of  this  day 
provide  a  substantial  part  of  the  story  of  Joseph.7 
In  general  the  play  follows  closely  the  substance 
of  the  Biblical  account. 

The  text  below  is,  perhaps,  a  grateful  addition 
to  the  body  of  liturgical  plays  for  two  reasons  : 
first,  in  that  it  introduces  a  new  subject  into  the 
repertory  ;  and  secondly,  in  that  it  is  one  of  the 
very  few  liturgical  plays  that  treat  stories  from 
the  Old  Testament. 

<fol.  151r>       ORDO  IOSEPH." 

Letetur  hodie 
Chorus  fidelium  ; 
Quiescant  fabule, 
Crescat  silentium. 
Sequantur  homines 

Respondent : 

Ihesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 
Angelws : 

Non  est  hie  ;  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ;  ite,  nuntiate 
quia  surrexit,  dicentes  : 

Surrexit  Dominus  uere,  alleluia. 

Xpislus  resurgens. 

The  text  and  the  page  end  here.     The  next  page  (fol. 
145V)  begins  :  In  die  sancto  Pasche  ad  processionem. 

'Genesis,  cap.  xxxvii. 

8  Bibliotheque  de  Laon,  MS.  263,  fol.  151r-153v.  The 
heading  is  preceded  immediately  by  the  concluding  words 
of  the  Ordo  Stelle  (fol.  149r-151r),—  Ey  dolor  est;  nolo 
consolari,  quia  non  sunt.  See  Ordinaires,  p.  394. 


Duo: 
Cantor : 


34 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


Joseph  consilium ; 
Vitent  mulieres 
Nature  uitium. 
lam  recitabitur 
Grauis  inuidia, 
Quom  Joseph  pertulit 
Fratrum  nequitia. 
Si  fratri  nocuit 
Fraternu?n  odium, 
Fratribws  profuit 
Joseph  dominium. 
Si  scire  placeat 
Que  sint  exordia, 
De  lacob  Moysi 
<fol.  151V>  Narrat  historia. 
Audite  pariter 
Que  causa  fuerit, 
Cur  domus  Israel 
Mare  transient. 

lacob  uocat  Joseph  et  dicit : 

Joseph,  nate 

Mi  dilecte, 

Scire  uolo,  propera 

Circa  frafres 

Atqwe  greges, 

Si  sint  cuncta  prospera. 


Hie,    accepto    baculo, 
uidentes  dicunt  : 


uadit. 


eum 


Ecce  uenit 

Somniator, 

Nobts  datur  copia. 

Occidamus, 

Videamus, 

Si  quid  prosint  somnia. 

Ruben  eum  uolens  liberare  dicit  : 

Non  est  bonum 

Ut  fraternum 

EfFundamus  sanguinem  ; 

Sed  exutum 

Recondanms 

lu  cisternam  ueterem. 

Vestem  eius 

In  edinum 

Polluamus  sanguine?n, 

Atqwe  patri 


Per  ignotum 
Remittamus  hominew. 

Exuunt  ilium  et  ponunt  in  cisterna?^.     Appar- 
ent Hismaelite,  quos  uidens  ludas  dicit  ad  fratres  : 

Mercatores 

Hismaelis 

Veniunt  de  finibws. 

Venundetur 

Transmarinis 

Et  ignotis  partibws  ; 

Vivat  puer, 

Impollutis 

Et  nos  simus  manibws. 

ludas  extrahit  eum  de  lacu,  et  ducens  secum  ad 
mercatores  dicit  : 

State,  queso. 
Vobis  uendo 
Puerum  egregium  : 
Vos  bis  denos 
NLihi  nummos 
Dabitis  in  pretium. 

Unus  de  mercatoribws  ad  socios  dicit : 

Festinate,  socii, 
Soluite  marsupium. 
Donenttw  argentei, 
Bonum  est  cowmercium. 

ludas,  acceptis  argenteis,  redit  et  diuidit  inter 
frafres.  Hismaelite  loseph  splendida  ueste  indu- 
tum  ducunt,  et  uenientes  ante  Pharaonem  dicunt  : 

Viuat  rex  in  eternum. 

Et  transeuntes  <fol.  152r  >  Futiphar  eunucmra 
dicunt  : 

Puerum  de  nobili 
Genitum  prosapia, 
Quern  ostendit  nobilem 
Facies  eximia, 
Regali  seruitio 
Volumus  relinquere, 
Emptum  graui  precio, 
Si  plus  uelis  emere. 

Phutifar,  uocato  consilio,  intuens  puerum  dicit  : 
Ex  aspectu  pueri 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


35 


Bonam  spem  concipio. 
Nosfro  bene  poterit 
Seruire  palatio. 
Date  qwod  exigitur 
Pretium  pro  puero. 

Consiliarii  surgunt,  et  leti  de  puero  dicunt  ad 
dominion  suuwi : 

Libenter  agimus 
Tuum  imperiura  ; 
Gratanter  addimus 
Nostrum  consilium. 
Videtwr  utilis 
Ista  mercatio. 
Dimittant  puerum, 
Accepto  pretio. 

Mercatores,  parata  statera,  ponderant  argentum, 
et  inclinantes  regi,  in  partem  uadunt.  Ruben 
reuersus  ad  puteum  et  non  inueniens  puerum  dicit : 

Querens  non  inuenio, 
Quo  me  uertam  nescio. 
Qui  pro  nobis  exiit, 
Per  nos  frater  periit. 

Interim  peregrinus  quidam  iuxta  frames  loseph 
transiens  uocatur.  Dant  illi  tunicam  loseph  et 
dicunt  : 

Redde  patri 

Vestera  nati, 

Defunctumqwe  nuntia. 

Si  tristatwr, 

Ilium  nostra 

Leuabit  presentia. 

Vadit  peregrinus  ad  lacob,  excitat  ilium,  os- 
endit  tunicam,  et  dicit  : 

Vide,  uestis 
An  sit  ista 
loseph  tui  filii  ? 
Eius  quippe 
Credens  esse, 
Reportare  uolui. 

lacob  pauefactws  surgit.  Tunicam  agnoscens 
dicit  : 

loseph,  fili, 
Cur  te  misit 
Paterua  stultitia  ! 


Te  crudelis 

Deuorauit 

Et  insana  <  fol.  152T  >  bestia  ! 

Quo  dicto  cadit  pasmatus.     Accedunt  filii  eius 
et  leuantes  eum  dicunt  : 

Care  pater, 

Ne  te  tanti 

Vis  doloris  superet. 

Cum  profecto 

Vitam  nemo 

Mortuus  recuperet. 

lacob  iterum  clamat  : 

loseph,  fili,        ut  supra. 
Itermn,  filii  eius  consolantwr  eum  et  dicunt  : 

Audi,  pater, 
Liberorwm 
Preces  et  solatia. 
Certe  nosti 
Quia  multos 
Occidit  tristitia. 

Quiescit  lacob  ;  sedent  filii  eius  circa  eum. 
Iterum  uxor  Phutifar  diligens  loseph  uocat  eum 
secreto.  loseph  non  concedit  consilio,  quo  uolente 
discedere,  ilia  clamidem  rapit,  loseph  dimisit  et 
fugit.  Ula  festinat  ut  innocenti  culpam9  impo- 
nat.  Ante  dominwm  suum  uenit,  clamidem  secum 
ferens  ;  clamorem  in  hec  uerba  facit : 

loseph  ille 
Cui  tan  tarn 
Dedisti  potentiam, 
Nos  offendit 
Atque  sum  mam 
Maiestatem  regiam  ! 
Me  lasciuus 
In  conclaui 
Voluit  opprimere  ! 

Et  ostendens  clamidem  dicit : 

Ecce  clamis 

Quam  amisit 

Cum  uellet  discedere  ! 

Facto  clamore  discedit.     Eunucus  ad  famulos  : 
9 MS.,  culpat. 


36  MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES.  [Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 

Hie  ebreus  sessum  uadit.     Surgwwt  filii  lacob,  et  excitantos 

Quasi  reus  patrem  dicunt : 

Seruetwr  in  carcere  ; 

~   .  ,.,  Audi,  pater, 

Qui  dilectam  „     . 

Nos  mstanter 

Nobis  sponsam  „  ... 

TT  .  .  .  .tames  urget  uahda. 

Vomit  oppnmere.  _T  . .    ,.  f 

JNobis  dictum 

Joseph  in   carcerew    uadit.      Rex    recordatus  In  Egiptum 

pistons  et  pincerne  produci  iubet  e  carcere.     Pistor  Quod  sit  ingens  copia. 

exit  cum  nebulis  et  cophino,  et  pincerna  cum  uite  Vis  eamus 

et  racemis  ;   quibus  ante  regem  presentatis,  pin-  vel  nuttamus 

cerna  ait :  Comparandi  gratia  ? 

Joseph  nobis  sapiens 

Reuelauit  somnia,  Iacob  dans  eis  argeutum  dicit  : 

Quod  haberem  grafo'am  jjoc  argento 

Et  pistor  suspendia.  De  frumento 

Qwod  est  necessariuw. 
Comparate 

Farce  tuo  <fol.  153r>  famulo,  Reportantes 

Rex  inuicte,  Pharao  !  Ad  uite  subsidiuwi. 

Si  recusas  parcere,  Beniamin 

Fiat  tua  iussio.  Exiguum 

Habebo  solatium  ; 
Rex  ait  de  pistore  :  Hie  mecum  remaneat, 

Hie  dampnetur,  In  uia  ne  Pereat- 

De  pincerna  •  Vadunt  in  Egyptum,  et  uenientes  ante  loseph 

dicunt : 

Et  hie  suo  Te,  ministrum  tanti  regis, 

Reddatur  officio.  Qui  sub  rege  cuncta  regis, 

Sic  de  illis  Salutantes  ueneramur, 

Curialis  Ne  superbi  uideamur. 

Ordinauit  ratio. 

loseph  ad  frafres  : 

Iterum  rex  mittit,  et  loseph  de  carcere  educto 

,         ...  -,.  .,  fecire  uolo 

et  uenienti  ante  se  dicit  : 

Que  sit  uobis 

Non  ignoro  Veniendi  ratio. 

Quanta  tui  Enarrate 

Cordis  sit  prudentia,  Qui  uos  estis, 

Qui  tarn  mire  Et  que  uestra  natio. 

Visionis 

Reuelasti  sownia.  Respondent  fratres  et  adeuntes  losep  <[  h  > 

dicunt  : 

Et  porrigens  ei  sceptruwi  dicit :  Procurator 

Per  te  bona  Et  saluator 

Regni  nostri  Totius  prouincie, 

Disponantur  omyiia.  Regnum  regis 

Pharaonis 
loseph,  osculata  dextera,  et  genu  inclinans  regi  Subintramus  hodie, 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


37 


Ut  argento 
Comparatis 
Onerati  frugibtw. 

<fol.  153V>  loseph  suscipit  argentum,  dat  eis 
in  saculis  frumentum,  et  cum  fruraento  reponit 
argentum.  Et  fratres  discedunt  securi.  Et  loseph 
uocat  famulos  et  mittit  post  illos  dicens  : 

Que  mora  iam  nostros 
Detiuet  famulos  ? 
Currite  citius, 
Soluite  saculos  ; 
Fruineutuw  deferuut 
Atqwe  pecuuiam. 
Pati  non  possumus 
Talem  iniuriam. 

Famuli  ad  fratres  : 

Fultum  fecistis  ; 

Tormenta  pati  meruistis. 

Procurator! 

Si  placet,  ite  mori. 

Reducuntur  fratres  ;  inuenta  est  pecunia  in  sacu- 
lis ;  confusi  uerecundia  tacent.     Dicit  eis  loseph  : 

Furti  quidem  conscii 
Omnes  estis  socii. 
Sed  unum  de  fratribus 
Tenebo  pro  ommbws. 
Career  huuc  custodiat 
Donee  ille  ueniat 
Quern  pater  retinuit, 
Qui  plus  ei  placuit. 

Unas  tenetur  captus  ;  alii  disceduut  inter  se 
dicentcs  : 

Merito  grauissimam 
Patimur  iniuriam. 
Talis  retributio 
Est  pro  fratre  uendito. 


Venientes 
dicunt  : 


ad    patrem    deponunt    sacculos  et 

Pater  dilectissime, 
Nobis  male  contigit. 
Pro  nobis  in  laquewn 
Frafer  nosier  incidit. 
Quolibet  euadere 
Pretio  non  poterit, 


Nisi  prius  Beniamin 
Pn'nceps  ille  uiderit. 

Jacob  amplexatus  Beniamin  exclamat 

Eya,  fili  Beniamin, 
Fili  mi,  quid  faciam  ? 
Quo  te  fratres  distrahunt 
Ad  innotam  patriam. 
Dews  te  reliquerat 
Pro  loseph  solatium  ; 
Qwod  te  perdam,  fili  mi, 
Mortis  est  inditium. 

ludas  ad  patrem  : 

Esto,  queso,  patiens, 
Sicut  pater  sapiens. 
Me  seruum  pro  puero.10 


University  of  Wisconsin. 


KARL  YOUNG. 


TWO  OLD  FRENCH  LYRICS  HITHERTO 
UNPUBLISHED. 

In  a  recent  book  on  the  musical  notation  of  the 
lyrics1  of  mediaeval  France,  Dr.  Jean  B.  Beck 
divides  the  types  of  music  into  three  classes  or 
modi.  The  first  modus  is  arranged  for  a  verse  of 
seven  syllables,  It  consists  of  a  musical  scheme, 
which  comprises  a  regular  alternation  of  long  and 
short  notes,  the  first  note  and  the  last  being  long. 
An  example  of  such  a  verse  is  the  song  '  En  mai 
quant  la  matinee.'  A  variation  of  this  modus  is 
arranged  for  eight  syllables  instead  of  seven.  In 
this  case  the  line  begins  with  a  short  note,  but  in 
other  respects  it  is  wholly  like  the  form  for  a  verse 
of  seven  syllables.  A  poem  of  this  second  type  is 
the  secgnd  one  published  in  the  present  article, 
1  En  la  douce  saison  d'estey.'  The  second  modus 
is  arranged  for  a  seven  syllable  verse,  but  differs 

10  Here  ends  the  page  and  the  fragment.  Two  folios 
have  been  torn  out  at  this  point.  On  folio  154r  begins,  in 
a  later  hand  (saec  xiv  in.),  a  series  of  hymns  of  the 
Canonical  Office. 

1  J.  B.  Beck  ;  Die  Melodien  der  Troubadours.  Strass- 
burg,  1908. 


38 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


from  the  first  modus,  in  that  the  accented  syllable 
comes  on  a  short  note.  Both  of  these  modi  count 
two  syllables  to  a  measure.  The  third  modus  is 
for  the  decasyllabic  verse  and  has  three  syllables 
to  the  measure  instead  of  two.  It  is  the  second 
modus  which  Beck  considers  the  genuine  French 
rhythm,  because  it  represents  equality  in  the  value 
of  the  principal  and  minor  word  accents,  since  the 
stronger  beats  fall  on  the  short  notes,  while  the 
weakness  of  accent  is  compensated  by  its  connec- 
tion with  the  long  note.  This  view  has  been  criti- 
cised by  Schlager,2  who  doubts  whether  this  modus 
can  be  recognized  in  the  early  notation.  He  thinks 
also  that  an  accent  on  a  short  note  shows  a  sepa- 
ration of  the  musical  notation  from  the  text.  The 
same  belief  is  expressed  by  Biemann,3  namely, 
that  if  the  second  modus  had  existed  in  early 
times,  it  would  have  conformed  to  the  word- 
rhythm  and  become  the  eight  syllable  variety  of 
the  first  modus. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  go  into  a  discussion 
of  these  theories,  but  whether  or  not  Beck's  idea 
is  ultimately  accepted,  it  is  interesting  to  consider 
one  of  the  poems,  which  he  cites  as  an  example  of 
this  genuine  French  rhythm.  Furthermore,  the 
poem  itself  is  an  unusually  charming  and  graceful 
composition,  and  its  musical  accompaniment  is 
singularly  appropriate.  Beck  publishes  only  the 
first  two  lines  in  his  large  volume,4  but  in  a  short 
article  in  the  Riemann  Festschrift 6  he  prints  the 
first  stanza  entire  together  with  the  notation. 

The  poem  in  question  is  found  in  three  manu- 
scripts :  Bib.  Nat.  846,  847  and  Nouv.  Ac.  1050. 
Kaynaud  gives  a  brief  description  of  these  manu- 
scripts.6 All  three  are  of  the  thirteenth  century 
and  in  all  of  them  the  writing  is  quite  distinct. 
Except  for  considerable  orthographical  differences 
the  three  versions  of  the  poem  present  few  vari- 
ants. For  convenience  in  comparing  the  manu- 
scripts I  shall  designate  846  by  A,  847  by  B,  and 

1  LBl.,  1909,  pp.  282-289.  Cf.  E.  Stengel,  Zeitschrift 
fur  franzosischs  Spraehe  und  Literatur,  xxxv,  pp.  156-161. 

8  Die  Erschliessung  des  Melodienschatzes  der  Troubadours 
und  Trouvlres ;  Mai  Hesse's  Deutscher  Musik-Kalendar, 
1909,  136  ff. 

*Beck,  L  e.,  p.  124.1 

5  Leipzig,  1909.     Also  in  La  Musique  des  Troubadours 
(Paris,  1910),  p.  84. 

6  Bibliographic  des   Chansonniers   Frangais,  Vol.  I,  pp. 
110  f.,  123,  and  201. 


1050  Nouv.  Ac.  by  C.  B  and  C  have  many  or- 
thographic resemblances,  which  separate  them 
from  A.  C  is  inferior  in  the  text,  as  n  1,  where 
C  omits  mes ;  in  1,  A  B  sa,  Cda;  iv  5,  A  B  crow, 
C  croi  ;  v5,  AB/ofes,  C/oloies  ;  the  latter  form  is 
impossible  for  the  metre  ;  this  is  also  true  in  v  8, 
carele,  where  A  B  have  quele.  A  and  B  are  almost 
equally  good.  B  is  to  be  preferred  in  iv  2,  where 
A  repeats  crien  from  in  2.  A  is  better  in  n  1 
and  v  1,  mes  cuers  for  mon  cuer  ;  n  8,  A  soz,  B 
sor ;  iv  7,  A  dur,  B  du.  Therefore  in  publishing 
the  text  I  have  followed  A  rather  than  B  or  C, 
but  have  given  the  variants  for  all  except  purely 
orthographic  differences.  It  is  also  from  A  that 
Beck  printed  the  stanza  above  mentioned. 

The  second  poem  offers  a  pleasing  contrast  to 
the  vigorous,  impressive  melody  of  the  first.  Its 
plaintive  delicacy  and  its  musical  setting  naturally 
suggest  comparison  with  the  well-known  song  of 
the  '  Flajolet ' : T  '  En  mai  quant  li  rossignolet,'  for 
the  melodies  of  both  belong  to  the  second  class  of 
the  first  modus  ;  i.  e.,  where  the  first  syllable  of 
the  verse  falls  on  a  short  note.  The  graceful 
charm  and  fitting  melody  of  this  second  song 
make  it  a  particularly  suitable  companion  piece 
to  'Apris  ai.'  Both  are  anonymous,  which  prob- 
ably accounts  for  the  fact  that  neither  has  been 
published  before.  The  second  is  found  in  only 
one  manuscript,  Bib.  Nat.  846,8fol.  51a. 

VERSIFICATION.  The  first  song  consists  of  five 
strophes  of  eight  verses  each  and  a  refrain  of  two 
verses  : 

7a  5b  7a  5b  7a  5b  7a  5b  j  7C  7C 
(          (          (          (  ' 

The  rhyme  changes  with  each  strophe.  The 
second  song  has  five  strophes  of  eight  verses  and 
an  envoi  of  four  verses.  It  does  not  have  any 
refrain  : 

8a  6b  8a  6b  8a  6b  8a  8a. 
(          (     (     ( 

Strophe  n  has  the  same  rhymes  as  strophe  i, 
and  strophe  rv  the  same  as  strophe  in.  The 
rhymes  of  the  envoi  correspond  to  the  last  four 
lines  of  strophe  v. 

7  Beck,  1.  c.,  p.  117,  prints  the  first  stanza  and  notation 
for  this  song.  «• 

8  Beck,  I.  c.,  p.  117,  prints  the  first  stanza  of  this  song, 
together  with  the  musical  notation.  Cf.  also  p.  193,  where 
he  speaks  of  its  literary  quality. 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


39 


I        Apris  ai  qu'en  chantant  plour 

Plus  qu'en  nule  guise  ; 

Pour  abatre  uia  dolour 

Que  si  ine  justise, 
5  Cent  sopirs  fais  chascun  jor, 

C'est  ma  rente  assise  ; 

Et  le  bien  que  j'ai  d' amours, 

C'est  par  mon  servise. 

Chascuns  dit  que  je  foloi, 
Mais  nuns  nel  set  mieuz  de  moi. 

II        Mes  cuers  a  raison  et  droit, 

S'en  li  met  m' entente, 

Car  a  chascun  qui  la  voit 

Plait  et  atalente. 
5  Nuns  n'en  dit  bien  qui  n'i  soit, 

Ne  mal  qu'il  ne  mente. 

Gariz  iert  qui  la  tendroit 

En  chambre  ou  soz  ente. 

Chascuns  dit  que  je  foloi, 
Mais  nuns  nel  set  mieuz  de  moi. 

in        Sa  hautece  et  son  vis  cler 

Crien,  ou  trop  se  fie. 

Las  !  el  ne  mi  vuet  amer, 

S'el  ne  s'en  troblie. 
5  Trop  a  en  moi  poure  per 

A  si  bele  amie, 

Mais  ce  me  fait  conforter 

Qu' amors  n'eslit  mie. 

Chascuns  dit  que  je  foloi, 

Mais  nuns  nel  set  mieuz  de  moi. 

IV        Mout  la  pris  et  rnout  la  lo. 

Qu'el  n'en  soit  plus  fiere  ! 

Avis  m'est  que  j'en  di  pou, 

Tant  1'a  mes  cuers  chiere. 
5  Bien  voi  que  trop  haul  m'encrou, 

Mais  mout  vaut  proiere. 

Aigue  perce  dur  chaillou, 

Por  qu'ades  i  fiere. 

Chascuns  dit  que  je  foloi, 
Mais  nuns  nel  set  mieuz  de  moi. 

v        Mes  cuers  ne  me  fait  nul  bien, 

Fors  poinne  et  domage  ; 

Ja  nou  verrai  lige  mien 

En  tout  mon  aaige. 
5  Cuers,  tu  foles.     Car  t'en  lien  ! 

Or  ai  dit  outraige, 

Mes  ser  la  sor  toute  rien 

Qu'ele  est  prouz  et  saige. 

Chascuns  dit  que  je  foloi, 
Mais  nuns  nel  set  mieuz  de  moi. 

VARIANTS. — i  :  3,  A  ma,  BC  la  ;  4,  A  que, 
BC  qui. — ii  :  1,  A  mes  cuers,  B  mon  cuer,  C 
cuers  ;  2,  AB  met,  C  ment;  A  mentente,  BC  sen- 
tente.  6,  A  quil,  BC  qui  ;  AC  ne,  B  nen.  8,  A 
soz,  B  sor,  C  souz. — in  :  1,  AB  sa,  C  da  :  4,  AC 
sen,  B  men  ;  1,  AC  me,  B  mi. — iv  :  2,  A  crien, 


repeated  from  in  2  ;  3,  A  5e,  B  ien,  C  gen  ;  A  doi, 
BC  di ;  A  uoi,  BC  sai  ;  5,  AB  crou,  C  croi  ; 
7,  AC  dur,  B  du.  —  v  :  1,  AC  mes  cuers,  B  mon 
cuer  ;  5,  AC  cuers,  B  car  ;  AB  foles,  C  foloies  ; 
A  cor  ten  tieng,  B  car  ten  tien,  C  car  ten  ten  ;  8, 
AB  quele,  C  carele. 

I     En  la  douce  saison  d'estey, 
Que  renverdist  la  fueille, 
Ai  amoreusement  chantey, 
Coment  que  je  m'en  dueille. 
J'ai  un  fin  cuer  desmesure" 
Qu'en.  bien  amer  s'orgueille. 
S'a  son  outrage  en  leautey 
Et  en  fine  amour  assamble*. 

ii       Je  requier  ma  dame  por  deu, 
Qu'en  pitie"  me  recuille 
Et  s'aucun  bien  m'avoit  done" 
Qu'ele  nou  me  retuille  ; 
Q'ou  mont  n'a  honor  ne  bonte" 
Ne  riens  que  je  plus  vuille, 
Fors  que  vivre  i  sa  volunte" 
Et  que  1'amasse  par  son  gre*. 

in        Sui  biau  paller,  sui  acointier, 
Sa  douce  compagnie 
Me  feront  penser  et  veillier 
Toz  les  jors  de  ma  vie  ; 
Et  me  font  de  mes  maus  euidier 
Biens,  et  sens  de  folie. 
Je  n'en  puis  garir  ne  ne  quier  : 
Or,  pant  dex  dou  rasoagier  ! 

IV        J'atent  ma  joie  &  grant  dongier, 
Ploins  d'esmai  et  d'envie  ; 
Ne  raisons  ne  me  puet  aidier, 
Se  pitiez  ne  m'ah'ie. 
Dame  cui  j'aing  sanz  losengier, 
Por  deu  ne  vos  griet  mie, 
Se  de  merci  vos  os  proier, 
C'onques  de  rien  n'oi  tel  mestier. 

V        Bien  voi  que  ma  dame  ne  chaut 
De  rien  fors  dou  destroindre  ; 
Quant  plus  m'a  conquis,  plus  m'asaut, 
Ne  n'en  puis  tote  ataindre  ; 
Tant  a  son  voloir  me  travaut 
Et  lait  plorer  et  plaindre. 
Je  1'amerai  coment  qu'il  m'aut ; 
Helas  1  j'aing  bien,  mais  pou  mi  vaut. 

VI        Hugues  compains,  se  dex  me  saut, 
J'aing  leaument  sanz  faindre  ; 
Si  c'uns  souls  poinz  d' amors  n'i  faut, 
Sc  ce  n'est  cil,  que  j'aing  trophaut. 


RAYMOND  T.  HILL. 


Yale  University. 


40 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


DR.  JOSEPH  WEBBE  AND  LANGUAGE 
TEACHING  (1622). 


I.    GRAMMAR  AS  A  HINDRANCE  TO  LEARNING 
LATIN. 

The  great  Grammar  War  of  the  seventeenth 
century  was  concerned  with  the  dispute  :  Shall 
Latin  be  taught  as  a  living  language,  or  through 
the  grammar  ?  The  advantage  of  the  grammar- 
method  was  that  uniformity  of  procedure  was  se- 
cured throughout  the  schools.  "To  make  pupils 
perfect  in  an  ordinary  Grammar,"  says  Philo- 
ponus  in  Brinsley'  s  Ludus  literarius,  ' '  by  the  use 
whereof  alone  so  many  excellent  scholars  have 
been ;  then  they  will  be  sure  to  go  forward  in  any 
school  or  course,  and  to  be  well  liked  by  every 
one."  But  every  one  admitted  that  this  was  a 
long,  tiresome,  repellant  course.  The  argument 
in  its  favour  was  that  if  slow,  it  was  sure,  though 
its  opponents  doubted  even  this  certainty.  Mon- 
taigne's experience  (1533-1592)  is  almost  a  locus 
classicus  on  method: 

' '  I  being  at  nurse  and  before  I  had  the  use  of 
my  tongue  was  delivered  to  a  German,  who  could 
not  speak  a  word  of  French  but  was  very  ready 
and  skilful  in  the  Latin.  This  man  whom  my 
father  procured  for  that  purpose,  and  to  whom  he 
allowed  a  very  considerable  salary  had  me  con- 
tinually in  his  arms  and  was  my  only  overseer. 
There  were  also  two  of  his  countrymen  appointed 
for  his  assistants,  but  much  inferior  to  him  in 
learning,  whose  business  it  was  to  attend  me  ;  but 
all  they  spoke  was  the  Latin  tongue.  As  for  others 
of  the  family,  it  was  an  inviolable  rule  with  my 
father,  that  neither  himself  nor  my  mother,  nor 
man  nor  maid  servant  were  suffered  to  speak  one 
word  in  my  company  except  such  Latin  phrases 
as  every  one  had  learned  to  chat  and  prattle  with 
me.  It  was  strange  to  tell  how  every  one  in  the 
family  profited  therein  :  my  father  and  mother 
learned  it,  and  the  household  servants  who  were 
near  my  person  understood  it,  when  spoken.  In 
brief  we  were  all  Latinised,  so  that  the  neighbour- 
ing villages  had  their  share  of  it  ;  insomuch  that  at 
this  day,  many  Latin  names  both  of  workmen  and 
their  tools  are  yet  in  use  among  them. ' ' 

Similar  conditions  are  described  by  Sir  Thomas 
Elyot  in  England  and  by  the  Stephenses  in  France 
also  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  common  factor 
is  the  creation  of  an  environment,  in  which  spoken 


Latin  is  acquired  in  the  same  way  as  the  vernacu- 
lar. This  is  not  unreasonable,  seeing  that  the 
mother-tongue  is,  in  the  first  instance,  a  foreign 
language,  and  the  method  of  its  acquisition  is 
clearly  the  natural  method.  But  whilst  all  the 
elements  of  an  environment  are  promptly  and  con- 
tinuously at  hand  for  the  child  in  his  progress  in 
the  mother-tongue,  they  have  to  be  provided  for 
the  child  to  put  him  into  the  same  advantageous 
position  for  acquiring  a  foreign  language,  or  else, 
and  better  for  this  purpose,  the  child  must  be 
transplanted  for  a  sufficient  time  to  the  foreign 
country  itself,  where  the  natural  process  of  acqui- 
sition becomes  substantially  the  same  as  for  the 
vernacular,  with  this  difference,  that  he  now  has 
the  vernacular  as  a  basis  (unconscious  it  may  be) 
for  comparison — in  words,  accidence,  and  construc- 
tion of  sentences. 

Now  the  creation  of  an  atmosphere  in  which  a 
foreign  language  shall  be  acquired  (apart  from  the 
country  in  which  that  language  is  the  vernacular) 
is,  in  any  complete  degree,  difficult  and  expen- 
sive. Accordingly  in  the  instances  to  which  I  have 
referred,  Montaigne,  Elyot,  the  Stephenses,  there 
were  present,  first  of  all,  a  considerable  degree  of 
culture  in  the  parents  and,  secondly,  resources  to 
provide  the  necessary  environment.  The  problem 
has  always  been  far  more  difficult  when  school- 
classes  have  been  considered.  But  there  have 
always  been  educationists  who  have  refused  to 
treat  the  subject  of  Latin-teaching  on  any  other 
principles  than  those  of  the  teaching  of  a  modern 
foreign  language. 

One  of  the  most  noteworthy  of  these  advocates 
in  England  in  the  seventeenth  century  is  a  man 
whose  name  now  is  scarcely  known — that  of  Dr. 
Joseph  Webbe.  Dr.  Webbe  was  a  physician,  an 
M.  D.  and  Ph.  D.  of  some  foreign  university. 
As  a  physician  in  1612  he  wrote  an  astrological 
treatise,  Minae  Coelestes  Affectus  aegrotantibus  de- 
nunciatis,  which  was  published  at  Rome.  Like 
many  of  the  physicians  of  that  time,  he  pursued 
literary  studies,  and  especially  was  drawn  to  the 
subject  of  classical  education.  In  1623,  he  was 
residing  in  the  Old  Bailey  in  London.  In  1622, 
he  wrote  An  Appeale  to  Truth,  advocating  the 
minimising,  if  not  abolition,  of  Grammar-methods 
in  teaching  languages  and  in  1623,  he  wrote  his 
Petition  to  Parliament,  asking  for  a  patent  to  be 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


41 


allowed  to  use  his  method  of  direct  teaching  of 
languages,  to  the  exclusion  of  its  use  by  other 
teachers.  About  1620,  Webbe  had  published  his 
translations  of  the  Familiar  Epistles  of  M.  T. 
Cicero.  As  this  was  one  of  the  earliest  books 
put  in  the  hands  of  Latin  pupils,  it  is  clear 
that  though  Webbe  advocated  the  conversational 
method  of  teaching  Latin,  he  also  required  the 
pupil  concurrently  to  begin  reading  Latin,  though 
no  Grammatical  text-book  was  to  be  employed. 
Webbe  wanted  to  do  for  England  what  Dolet  and 
Manutius  had  done  respectively  for  France  and 
Italy,  in  translating  Cicero's  Familiar  Epistles. 
He  tells  us  he  has  carefully  borne  in  mind  Hor- 
ace's precept  in  translation  : 

Nee  verbum  verbo  curabis  reddere  fidus 
Interpres. 

He  thus  describes  his  aims  in  translation  : 

"Lest  I  might  err  with  that  English  Gentle- 
man who  being  demanded  by  an  Italian  what  was 
become  of  his  foot-boy  made  answer  :  '  Ha  preso  i 
suoi  calcagni.'  Which  sounded  almost  as  well  to 
the  Italian,  as  this  other  to  an  Englishman,  from 
the  mouth  of  a  great  traveller,  who  being  asked, 
when  he  saw  his  friend,  replied  :  ' It  maketh  a  lit- 
tle that  he  was  here.'  Both  these  answers,  as 
many  of  the  like,  though  they  have  good  words, 
yet  for  the  sense,  being  word  for  word  translated, 
the  first  is  but  English-Italian,  the  last  Italian- 
English.  Which  how  far  they  are  different  from 
the  purity  of  speech,  in  either  language,  let  their 
Boccaccio  and  our  Sir  Philip  [Sidney]  teach  us. 
Keeping  therefore,  sense  for  sense  ;  lest  I  might 
offend  mine  own  language,  or  wrong  mine  Author, 
I  have  endeavoured,  within  the  compass  of  my  ca- 
pacity, to  give  thee  some,  though  not  all  manner 
of  satisfaction.  For  not  alone  the  profit  of  young- 
lings is  to  be  respected  ;  but  theirs  also,  that  are 
desirous  to  read  matters  of  history,  negotiations, 
war,  and  secret  passages  of  policy,  and  govern- 
ment ;  of  which  these  little  books  are  full  :  as 
being  written  by  the  greatest  wit,  and  most  indus- 
trious and  frequent  Orator,  in  the  weightiest  busi- 
nesses and  quickest  times  of  the  Roman  Common- 
wealth." 

The  writer  on  Webbe  in  the  Dictionary  of  Na- 
tional Biography  states  that  John  Gee  in  his  Foot 
out  of  the  snare,  1623  (a  book  holding  up  the 
Catholics  to  contempt,  naming  all  the  Catholic 
authors  of  the  time  known  to  him),  describes  Dr. 
Webbe  as  residing  in  the  ' '  Old  Bailey  ' '  [Lon- 


don] where  "he  pretendeth  to  teach  a  new  gain 
way  to  learn  languages" — and  then  follows  the 
insinuation,  —  "and  by  this  occasion  may  inveigle 
disciples." 

It  must  be  confessed  that  Dr.  Webbe  in  at- 
tempting to  pursue  the  career  of  a  teacher  in 
London  weighted  himself  very  heavily  by  being 
a  physician,  an  astrologer,  and  a  Roman  Catholic, 
in  1623,  and  then  as  a  teacher,  running  the  gaunt- 
let of  all  the  conservative  grammar-teachers,  who 
acknowledged  the  supremacy  of  Lily  as  the  au- 
thoritative Grammar,  and  were  ordered  by  the 
King's  proclamation,  both  to  use  that  Grammar 
and  "no  other."  Here  was  a  physician — as- 
trologer— Roman  Catholic — non-teacher,  presum- 
ing to  suggest  that  he  should  have  a  patent  for  a 
method  that  ignored  both  Lily  and  the  whole  race 
of  professional  teachers. 

Webbe' s  first  tractate  on  the  subject  is  entitled 
An  Appeale  to  Truth  (1622).  He  begins  by 
pointing  out  that  "grammatica"  amongst  the 
ancient  Romans  was  not  used  to  teach  the  Latin 
language  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  language 
was  their  own  already.  The  subject  was  what  we 
should  call  letter-knowledge,  and  could  only  cor- 
respond to  our  ABC  Primers,  horn-books  and  the 
like.  Grammar  had  a  place  amongst  the  Liberal 
Arts,  but  "  neither  it  nor  any  of  the  rest  can 
teach  the  languages. ' ' 

No  doubt  the  antiquity  of  grammar  is  great. 
But  we  must  keep  a  wary  outlook  on  it,  lest  it 
"trifle  away  our  time,  frustrate  our  labours,  dis- 
enable ourselves  and  wrong  the  ends  of  our  inten- 
tions. For  neither  hath  the  name  proportion  with 
the  thing,  nor  the  thing  with  what  it  promiseth." 
It  would  be  easy  to  cite  the  numerous  instances  in 
which  grammarians  have  exposed  one  another's 
defects  and  errors,  but  this  is  a  commonplace.  It 
is  more  to  the  purpose  to  cite  a  modern  school- 
master, Thomas  Haine,  whom  Webbe  describes  as 
"one  of  the  most  sufficient  schoolmasters  about 
this  city  of  London."  Haine,  it  appears,  had 
written  a  Latin  discourse  to  the  same  effect  as 
Webbe' s  Appeale.  In  this  tractate  he  held  that 
some  grammarians  had  been  minimum  diligentes 
and  that  they  fell  "  within  the  compass  of  Quin- 
tilian's  complaint  against  such  as  plura  quam  par 
sit  dieunt,  non  tamen  omnia  (say  more  than  they 
ought  and  yet  not  all  they  should)."  Haine  went 


42 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


on  to  assert  that  grammarians  enriched  them- 
selves with  the  spoil  of  lexicons  and  other  arts, 
and  adorned  their  plumes  with  filched  feathers. 
"When  they  have  done  what  they  can,  they  do 
but  break  young  scholars'  backs  with  the  burden 
of  unnecessary  precepts,  and  that  setting  their 
tender  wits  upon  the  rack,  they  pull  and  tear  them 
with  tautologies." 

Of  course,  such  quotations  as  the  above  from 
Haine  and  much  of  what  Webbe  has  to  say  him- 
self are  rather  protests  against  the  over-elabora- 
tions of  grammars,  than  against  simple  text-books 
of  grammar,  but  Webbe  maintains  that  great 
critics  not  only  condemn  the  grammarians,  but 
have  brought  the  keenest  criticism  to  bear  on  the 
art  of  grammar  in  itself.  '  'For, ' '  says  Webbe, 

"In  following  grammar  we  abandon  elegancy 
and  the  pleasure  of  the  ear,  and  speak  and  write 
Grammar-Latin,  Euglish-Latin,  Dutch-Latin, 
French-Latin,  and  in  a  word  every  nation  by  this 
art  writes  its  own  peculiar  Latin  and  not  the 
Latin  of  the  Latins,  nor  any  foreign  language  as 
it  should  be.  For  in  every  tongue  there  are  many 
things,  which  if  we  should  utter  by  any  other 
order  than  as  they  are  vulgarly  spoken,  they 
would  not  run  well  and  we  should  be  thought  to 
speak  improperly  ;  as  every  man  may  judge  by  the 
clauses,  sentences,  and  especially  proverbs  c-f  his 
own  language,  which  transposed  or  made  up  with 
other  words  then  common,  would  for  the  most  part 
lose  their  pleasing  grace,  delightful  sound,  and 
(many  times)  their  sense  and  meaning." 

After  quoting  Ascham  to  show  that  grammar- 
study  leads  to  bad  Latin  composition  and  hin- 
drance of  the  understanding  of  the  poets,  he  con- 
tinues : 

' '  '  Many  of  the  Master-grammarians, '  says 
Haloinus,  (which  lost  no  time,  either  in  writing 
of  Grammar,  or  in  teaching  it)  have  been  so  far 
from  perfection  in  their  own  profession  that  they 
were  neither  able  to  speak  Latin  rightly,  nor  to 
write  it  with  elegancy.  Further,  we  may  note  a 
number  of  their  scholars  which  have  taken  infinite 
pains  till  twenty  years  of  age,  sometimes  till  thirty, 
and  yet  are  not  able  to  write  or  speak  any  thing 
worth  the  reading  :  nor  have  they  any  knowledge 
in  other  arts  or  professions  :  though  they  have  suf- 
fered many  stripes,  and  are  almost  deaf  with  cries 
and  exclamations. 

' '  Grammar  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  and  cannot 
of  itself  make  us  speak  correctly.  As  Montaigne 
says  : 


"  '  There  are  that  know  neither  Ablative,  Con- 
junctive, Substantive,  nor  Grammar ;  no  more 
than  doth  their  Lackey,  nor  any  Oyster-wife 
about  the  streets  ;  and  yet  if  you  have  a  mind 
thereto  they  will  entertain  you  your  fill,  and  per- 
adventure  stumble  as  little  and  as  seldom  against 
the  rules  of  their  tongue,  as  the  best  Master  of 
Arts  in  France.  And, '  saith  he,  '  I  hate  such  as 
can  brag  of  their  rules  of  Grammar,  and  can 
neither  write  nor  speak  a  language ' ;  and  so  do 
others.  '  Nay, '  saith  he,  '  I  find  the  choicest  men 
were  they  that  most  condemned  rules. ' 

"What,  then,  can  be  put  in  place  of  Gram- 
mar? 

"If  we  ask  Quintilian  ...  he  will  tell  us 
plainly  that  custom  is  the  best  Schoolmistress  for 
languages,  and  that  all  the  Latins  were  taught  by 
use  and  custom,  from  the  mouths  of  nurses  and 
other  women,  which  had  the  keeping  of  them, 
from  their  cradle ;  and  not  by  Grammar  as  Gram- 
marians." 

Montaigne,  we  have  seen,  learned  Latin  by 
speaking  it,  not  by  Grammar,  and  Webbe  quotes 
the  passage  in  full  from  Montaigne's  Essays  (Bk. 
i,  cap.  25): 

"This  method  of  learning  languages  had," 
Webbe  continues,  such  "  authority  with  Ludovicus 
Vives,  that  he  confesseth  he  had  rather  be  thus 
employed  for  one  year,  than  to  bestow  ten  years 
to  this  purpose  under  the  best  and  most  reputed 
schoolmasters. ' ' 

Having  treated  of  Grammar  as  the  basis  of 
adulterate  Latin,  Webbe  makes  his  appeal  to 
Truth  : 

"But  nothwithstanding  all  these  reasons,  all 
these  experiments,  all  these  grave  and  weighty 
testimonies  ;  I  doubt  not,  but  I  shall  hear  of  some 
Demetrius,  who  with  his  Associates,  to  keep  up  the 
trade,  will  still  be  crying,  Magna  Diana  Ephe- 
siorum. 

"Wherefore,  I  appeal  to  thee,  my  Defendress, 
and  to  thy  Tribunal,  most  humbly  imploring  no 
other  redress  of  injurious  oppressions,  but  that  the 
presence  of  thy  self,  O  Truth,  may  be  so  much 
respected,  that  blindfold  opinion,  Patroness  of 
Grammar  and  Grammarians,  may  cease  to  govern 
and  to  keep  the  people  (as  herself  is)  hood- 
winked :  And  that,  upon  thy  straight  and  imperial 
Command,  she  may  leave  all  men  indifferent,  and 
in  the  posture  of  an  equal  balance,  ready  to  turn, 
where  reason,  sense  and  demonstration  are  most 
ponderous, 

' '  And  the  waking  part  of  Students  shall  not 
only  acknowledge  thy  divine  and  powerful  hand 
in  the  cure  of  their  deplored  lethargy  :  but  myself, 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


43 


thy  devote  suppliant,  in  lieu  thereof  shall  be 
obliged  in  ray  next  endeavours,  to  discover  in 
what  manner  this  Use,  Custom,  and  Authority 
should  be  fought  and  ordered,  for  the  speedy, 
cheap,  and  infallible  furnishing  of  this,  and  every 
other  Nation  with  all  sorts  of  purest  Languages. ' ' 


II.    LATIN-  LATIN. 

Dr.  Joseph  Webbe  in  his  Appeale  to  "the  sole 
Governess  of  his  best  endeavours, ' '  viz.  Truth,  is 
convinced  of  the  idolatry,  which  has  been  paid  to 
' '  Grammar-Latin "  as  he  calls  it  and  suggests  as 
substitute  what  he  graphically  calls,  in  contra- 
distinction to  Grammar-Latin,  Latin-Latin.  The 
late  Mr.  W.  H.  Widgery  in  his  Teaching  of  Lan- 
guages in  Schools  is  the  only  writer  of  whom  I 
know,  who  has,  in  modern  times,  shown  any  re- 
cognition of  Webbe,  and  he  suggests  that  Webbe's 
tractates  on  language-teaching  are  worthy  of  re- 
print. Mr.  Widgery  was  the  earnest  advocate  of 
the  idea  of  the  sentence,  not  the  word,  as  the  unit 
in  language-teaching.  Joseph  Webbe  would  have 
accepted  Widgery' s  suggestion  that  the  ordinary 
grammar-method  trains  the  idea  in  children  ' '  that 
languages  are  built  up  mosaic-like  out  of  para- 
digms and  syntax  rules,  a  view  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  truth. ' ' 

Dr.  Webbe  had  an  alternative  method  to  pro- 
pose. He  called  it  the  Latin-Latin  method. 
This,  in  short,  is  the  method  of  picking  up,  in  the 
course  of  instruction,  the  Grammar  from  Latin 
authors  themselves  instead  of  from  grammarians. 
Languages  can  only  be  acquired  by  "the  custom 
and  use  of  speaking  them."  He  therefore  ex- 
pounds this  system  in  a  further  tractate  which 
takes  the  form  of  a  petition  to  Parliament  for  a 
patent  for  his  method  of  teaching  Latin.  This 
contains  a  full  account  of  possible  objections  to  his 
system  and  an  answer  to  each  objection  which,  as 
far  as  he  can  anticipate,  could  be  urged.  The 
tractate  is  entitled,  in  full :  A  Petition  to  the  High 
Court  of  Parliament,  In  the  behalf  of  auncient  and 
authentique  Authors,  for  the  universal  and  per- 
petuall  good  of  every  man  and  his  postertie :  Pre- 
sented by  Joseph  Webbe,  Dr.  in  Ph.  Printed  1628. 

Grammar- Latin  and  Latin-Latin.  Dr.  Webbe 
quotes  Quintilian  :  Aliud  est  grammatice,  aliud 
Latine  loqui :  and  continues  : 


"There  are  two  sorts  of  Latin,  whereof  one 
is  Grammar-Latin  and  the  other  Latin-Latin. 
By  Latin -La tin  I  mean  such  as  the  best  approved 
Authors  wrote,  and  left  us  in  their  books  and 
monuments  of  use  and  custom.  By  Grammar- 
Latin  I  understand  that  Latin  that  we  now  make 
by  Grammar  rules  :  the  first  intention  of  which 
rules,  and  their  collection  out  of  that  custom  and 
those  Authors,  was,  to  make  us  write  and  speak 
such  Latin  as  that  Custom  and  those  Authors  did  ; 
which  was  Latin-Latin  :  but  it  succeeded  not." 

Webbe's  Petition.  "  Wherefore  my  Petition  is 
to  this  high  Court  of  Parliament  (not  that  Gram- 
mar should  be  questioned,  in  that  it  is  our  old 
acquaintance,  and  hath  a  long  time  been  a  ledger 
[lodger  ?]  here  amongst  us,  on  the  behalf  of  these 
Authors  ;  but,  considering  it  is  not  able  to  give 
us  Authors'  Latin)  that  these  Authors,  whom  we 
seem  to  have  so  much  respected  in  our  Schools  and 
Universities,  coming  themselves  as  it  were  in  per- 
son, and  offering  to  dwell  amongst  us,  may  to  their 
deserved  honour  and  our  desired  benefit,  be  now 
received,  priviledged  and  admitted  to  tell  their  own 
tales,  and  teach  us  their  own  Latin." 

Dr.  Webbe  wishes  a  Patent  for  his  Method  of 
Language  teaching  : 

"This  admittance  of  theirs,  have  I  these 
eighteen  years  continued,  and  these  five  last  years 
seriously  solicited,  and  cannot  as  yet  find  any  way 
to  compass  it,  without  manifest  danger  of  ruining 
myself  and  mine  assistants,  unless  by  favour  of 
this  high  and  honorable  Court  I  may  be  allowed 
father  of  mine  own  children,  and  Author  of  mine 
own  work  and  inventions :  that  is,  that  no  one  else 
may  print  them  or  import  them  :  nor  any  man  teach 
languages  by  that  method  that  I  propose,  but  such 
as  I  think  fitting ;  and  that  these  priviledges  may 
continue  for  the  space  of  21  years  after  the  publica- 
tion of  every  book  of  this  nature  that  shall  be  pub- 
lished within  the  term  of  years  before  specified; 
with  prohibition  that  no  man  shall  hereafter,  dur- 
ing that  time,  attempt  the  same  way  in  any  other 
Aut/ior  or  Language,  without  my  special  allow- 
ance. ' ' 

Answers  to  objections  to  his  Methods. 

1.  "It  might  be  thought  a  great  presumption 
and  arrogancy  in  me  to  attribute  so  much  unto 
myself,  as  to  set  upon  a  new-found  thing,  that  for 
so  many  ages,  and  amongst  so  infinite  a  number 
of  learned  men  was  never  hitherto  reflected  on  ; 
and  therefore  much  to  be  suspected  and  demurred 
upon." 


44 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


Webbe  states  that  he  has  already  shown  in  his 
Appeale  to  Truth  that  his  method  has  existed 
' '  since  speaking  was,  which  was  long  before 
Grammar  and  is  where  no  Grammar  ever  came. ' ' 

2.  It  is  objected  :   ' '  That  though  the  general 
way  by  custom  and  authority  might  be  intimated 
by  these  Authors,  yet  I  could  not  excuse  myself  of 
presumption  in  the  course  I  took  unto  it  in  par- 
ticular." 

Webbe  answers  :  ' '  But  as  for  that  which  is 
built  upon  this  groundwork  [of  Cicero,  etc.]  for 
the  peculiar  use  of  every  man,  and  the  bringing 
of  that  into  act,  which  these  grave  men  have 
given  us  hitherto  but  to  contemplate  :  that  (with- 
out presumption)  I  call  mine  ;  as  the  pipe  of  lead 
calls  the  water  which  it  conveys  to  many  cisterns ; 
always  acknowledging  the  waters  of  all  true  under- 
standing to  proceed  only  from  the  eternal  fountain 
of  all  wisdom  my  Creator. ' ' 

3.  He  is  asked  :  "Are  you  sure  you  know  what 
you  promise  ?  Is  it  possible  to  learn  Latin  without 
a  Grammar  ?  ' ' 

Answer  :  "  It  is  not  possible  to  learn  Gram- 
mar-Latin without  Grammar  ;  but  it  is  possible 
to  learn  Latin-Latin  (that  is,  the  Latin  that  was 
in  use  among  the  ancient  Latins)  without  Gram- 
mar." 

Webbe  next  writes  a  strong  passage  ("  That 
that's  more  than  ten  Quintilians").  "For  rede 
scribendi  atque  loquendi  ars  must  run  along  with 
the  custom  and  use  of  speaking  that  was  observed 
by  those  ancient  Authors  :  which  I  must  confess 
the  vulgar  Grammar  arriveth  at,  or  else  it  should 
want  all  colour  and  authority  :  but  Quintilian,  and 
that  that's  more  than  ten  Quintilians,  the  very 
practice  tells  us,  it  hitteth  not  the  mark  of  writing 
rightly.  God  is  my  record,  I  speak  not  this  to 
deprive  Grammar  of  her  scholars,  (for  she  hath 
her  own  worth,  and  according  unto  it  should  be 
respected)  but  my  humble  Petition  is,  that  the  old 
authentic  Authors  and  chief  Lords  of  language, 
our  best  and  sincerest  friends,  may  not  be  thrust 
out  of  their  own  patrimony,  by  those  whose  chiefest 
grace  it  is  to  be  thought  their  followers. ' ' 

4.  Webbe  is  asked  for  proofs  of  his  system  of 
the  possibility  of  learning  Latin-Latin. 

He  answers,  ' '  The  grounds  of  speech  are  laid  in 
things,  in  the  meanings  of  which  things  all  tongues 
meet.  Therefore  as  they  are  all  the  meanings  of 
things,  so  they  are  all  the  meanings  of  one  another. 
But  one  word  does  not  correspond  to  another  word, 
a  second  to  a  second  and  so  on — e.  g.  though  in 


Italian  un  =  an  ;  cavallo,  horse  ;  di,  of ;  buon, 
good  ;  metallo,  metal ;  and  '  A  horse  of  good 
metal'  put  together  be  good  English  yet  the 
Italian  understands  not,  un  cavallo  di  buon  met- 
allo to  be  Italian,  but  disclaims  it."  Use  and 
custom  alone  determine,  not  the  Grammar  and 
Dictionary. 

5.  It  is  said  :  ' '  Authority  cannot  afford  mem- 
bers for  all  senses."     If  there  is  no  authority, 
pleads  Webbe,  how   come   such  sentences  to  be 
translated  by  grammar- Latin  ?     If  necessary,  he 
will  print  a  supplement  to  his  Authors,  to  include 
some  few  names  of  things  which  fall  not  within 
the  discourses  of  Lis  Authors. 

6.  Then  he  is  asked :  ' '  Where  are  these  Authors 
reduced  to  your  Method,  and  where  is  that  Sup- 
plement? " 

He  objects  to  being  required  to  produce  them 
unless  he  has  privileges  granted  him  :  "I  should 
not  be  urged  to  a  greater  inconvenience,  (as  to 
bestow  yet  other  four  or  five  hundred  pounds)  to 
produce  that,  which  when  it  is  produced,  gives  me 
no  more  assurance  of  a  priviledge,  than  at  this 
present. ' ' 

7.  Then  it  was  objected:   "That  his  Majesty 
[James  I]  had  already  confirmed  a  Patent  granted 
for  the  teaching  of  Grammar,  and  would  admit  no 
other  course  of  teaching. ' ' 

Whereupon  Webbe  demands  :  "What  hin- 
drance is  the  Goldsmiths'  privilege  to  the  Bra- 
ziers'? "  "I  desire  not,"  he  continues,  "the  sup- 
pression or  hindrance  of  Grammar,  but  the  purity 
of  Latin.  Again,  this  Grammar  was  privileged 
to  forbid  all  other  Grammars  :  but  I  seek  not  to 
introduce  another  Grammar,  except  we  shall  very 
improperly  call  it  Cicero's  Grammar.  My  desire 
is  only,  that  such  as  are  weary,  and  would  not,  or 
can  no  longer  go  by  Grammar,  or  are  not  desirous 
of  Grammar-Latin,  might  be  admitted  to  an  easy 
and  profitable  use  of  Authors,  and  to  these  Authors' 
own  way  of  teaching  their  own  Language  without 
Grammar. ' ' 

8.  Asked  for  proof  of  his  Method,    Webbe 
answers  that  he  has  a  "  twofold  proof:  one,  of  a 
power  that  these  books  bring  to  any  man,  the  first 
day  to  write  rightly  by  them :   and  another,  of 
this  power  reduced  by   exercise  to  an  habit  of 
writing  rightly  without  them." 

9.  If  you  take   clauses  out  of  Authors,  and 
think  of  the  meaning  of  the  whole,  how  do  you 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


45 


know   what  each   word   signifies?    Besides  it  is 
stealing. 

Answer  :  Construing  word  for  word  is  impos- 
sible in  any  language,  e.  g.,  in  the  barbarous 
English  of  the  Frenchman,  "I  you  pray,  sir"  for 
je  vous  prie,  Monsieur.  ' '  Wherefore  I  had  rather 
a  scholar  should  remember  the  natural  and  re- 
ceived position  of  a  clause  by  keeping  the  words 
always  all  together,  than  understand  the  particular 
correspondence  of  the  words,  and  thereby  lose 
their  proper  places.  For  discretion  and  compari- 
son of  clause  with  clause  will  at  length  bring  the 
understanding  of  the  words  whether  we  will  or 
no  ;  but  nothing  will  bring  the  true  position  of 
these  words  again,  by  reason  that  our  own  tongue 
doth  therein  still  misguide  us,  and  makes  us  al- 
ways to  be  distinguished  for  strangers,  even  in  our 
very  writing. 

"  Other  demands  and  objections  less  material, 
as  not  touching  the  thing  itself,  but  some  particu- 
lar and  by-respects  would  clog  your  ears  with  more 
than  becomes  a  modest  brevity.  Wherefore  leav- 
ing them,  till  some  further  occasion  offer  [s]  ;  and 
most  humbly  entreating  you  to  cast  a  favourable 
eye  on  this  Petition,  I  in  all  obedience  dedicate 
myself,  my  labour,  and  the  rest  of  my  life,  in  the 
full  extent  of  my  whole  talent,  to  the  eternal  glory 
of  my  God,  to  the  loyal  service  I  owe  unto  my 
Sovereign  and  his  succession,  and  to  the  future 
good  of  you  and  your  posterity. ' ' 

In  spite  of  the  much  greater  renown  of  Mon- 
taigne, Roger  Ascham,  John  Amos  Comenius,  and 
John  Milton  on  questions  of  teaching  the  lan- 
guages, it  is  doubtful  whether  any  of  them  saw 
more  clearly  than  Joseph  Webbe,  in  these  two 
tractates,  the  Appeale  to  Truth  and  his  Petition  to 
Parliament,  the  essence  of  the  problems  of  lan- 
guage-teaching. In  the  seventeenth  century  it  was 
still  open  to  argue  that  Latin  should  be  regarded 
as  a  spoken,  a  living  language.  For  scholars  and 
diplomats  still  used  Latin  as  a  means  of  communi- 
cation. I  have  shewn  elsewhere  that  in  England 
the  decadence  of  the  cultivation  of  Latin  as  a 
spoken  language  set  in  with  the  growing  necessity 
of  learning  French.  This  period  did  not  begin 
with  the  Restoration-attraction  towards  French  led 
by  the  Court,  but  it  was  intensified  by  it.  In  the 
Commonwealth  period,  royalist  refugees  of  the  best 
families  were  in  France  bringing  up  their  children 
with  Huguenot  pastors  as  teachers  ;  and  in  culti- 
vated homes  in  England,  it  was  a  common -place 
that  some  of  the  most  learned  and  attractive  works 
(not  in  Latin)  were  in  French.  When  French 


became  used  as  the  diplomatic  language  and  had  a 
splendid  literature  of  scholarly  works,  Latin  tended 
to  cease  to  remain  the  international  language  and 
accordingly  ceased  to  be  taught  as  a  living  language. 
Hence,  the  writing  of  exercises  and  the  learning 
of  grammar   were  glorified,   and   became  tradi- 
tional.   Accordingly  the  plea  of  an  approximation 
of  the  teaching  of  Latin  to  that  of  French  gave  the 
suggestion  of  the  direct  method  of  learning  Latin 
as  a  retrograde  movement.     Both  Webbe  and  the 
method  for  which  he  stood  became  obscured  and 
obsolete  in  England  in  the  later  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.     Some  years  after  Webbe's  Ap- 
peale to  Truth,  viz.  in  1644,  the  Janscnist,  Claude 
Lancelot,  published   the  Nouvelle  Methode  pour 
apprendre  facilement  et  en  pen  de  terns  la  langue 
Latine  or,  as  it  was  called,  The  Port  Royal  Latin 
Grammar.     Dr.  Beard  says,  "  This  was  the  first 
instance  in  which  the  attempt  was  made  to  teach  a 
dead  through  the  medium  of  a  living  language. ' ' 
But   Webbe's  Appeale   to    Truth,    in   England, 
twenty-two  years  earlier  than  Lancelot,  was  both 
prior  in  time,  and  more  thoroughgoing,  in  that  it 
dispensed  with  a  grammatical  textbook,  and  sug- 
gested that  Latin  should  be  learned  through  Latin 
authors  helped  out  by  explanations  in   the  ver- 
nacular, but  the  help  to  be  given  should  be  directed 
to  the  understanding  of  the  Latin,  clause  by  clause 
and  not  word  by  word.     It  is,  however,  important 
to  bear  in  mind  the  name  of  Lancelot  and  the 
Port-Royalists  in   France,  for  it  shows  that  the 
recognition  was  all  the  more  general,  in  the  first 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  that  Latin  could 
not  be  effectively  taught   by  the  old  grammar- 
methods  and  that  the  need  of  more  rational  in- 
struction in  Latin  was  experienced  by  various  re- 
formers without  intercommunication  of  any  kind. 
To    be    carefully    distinguished    from   Joseph 
Webbe,  is  George  Webbe.    There  are  two  reasons 
which  make  this  difficult.     They  are  both  "  Dr. 
Webbe"  and  they  both  wrote  books  illustrating 
method  of  Latin  teaching,  and  their  method  of 
teaching  were  similar.     Dr.  George  Webbe  was 
born  in  1588,  and  died  in  1641.    He  was  admitted 
scholar  of  CorpusChristi  College,  Oxford,  in  1598. 
He  became  minister  of  Steeple  Ashton  in  Wilt- 
shire, taught  grammar  there,    and   subsequently 
taught  grammar  at  Bath.     In    1634  he  became 
Bishop  of  Limerick. 


46 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


His  educational  books  were  : 

1.  Pueriles  Confabulatiunculae;  or,  Children's 
Talk.    1627. 

2.  Lessons  and  Exercises  out  of  Cicero  ad  Atti- 
cum.    1627. 

3.  The  first  Comedy  of  Pub.    Terentius  called 
Andria  and  The  Second  Comedy  of  Pub.  Terentius 
called  Eunuchus.    1629. 

Wood  (Athen.  Oxon.,  Vol.  iii,  col.  30)  says  of 
the  last-named  ' '  both  very  useful  for  school-boys 
and  are  yet  used,  as  his  two  former  school-books 
are,  in  many  schools. ' '  By  George  Webbe'  s  method 
the  text  of  Terence  was  broken  up  systematically 
on  a  method  similar  to  that  of  modern  "analysis" 
of  sentences.  He  entitled  his  treatment  the  Clau- 
sulary  Method. 

It  is  difficult,  I  have  said,  to  keep  Joseph 
Webbe  and  George  Webbe  separate  in  one's  mind, 
especially  as  the  clausulary  method  seems  to  be 
advocated  by  both.  The  following  passage  from 
John  Webster  probably  confuses  the  two  writers, 
though  the  latter  part  of  the  quotation  seems  defi- 
nitely to  refer  to  the  would-be  patentor  of  the 
direct  method  of  Latin-teaching, 

"Much  to  be  commended,  therefore,  was  the 
enterprise  of  Doctor  Web  [=  Webbe]  who  found 
out  a  more  short,  certain  and  easy  way  to  teach 
the  Latin  tongue  in,  than  the  tedious,  painful, 
intricate  and  hard  way  of  Grammar,  and  that  by 
a  brief  and  easy  Clausulary  Method,  in  far  shorter 
time  to  attain  perfection  therein,  and  if  it  had 
been  well  followed  and  improved,  would  have 
produced  an  incredible  advantage  to  the  whole 
nation ;  but  we  are  in  this  like  tradesmen,  who  all 
bandy  and  confederate  together  to  suppress  any 
new  invention  though  never  so  commodious  to  the 
Commonwealth,  lest  thereby  their  own  private 
gain  should  be  obstructed  or  taken  away." — 
Academiarum  Examen.  By  John  Webster,  1654. 

Dr.  Joseph  Webbe  also  wrote  Usus  et  authoritas 
id  est,  liber  feliciter  incipit,  sub  titulo  Entheati 
materialis  primi  hexametra  et  pentametra,  etc. 
Londini,  1626.  12mo. 

FOSTER  WATSON. 

University  College  of  Wales. 


OLD  NORSE  NOTES. 

I.   A  SECOND  OCCURRENCE  OF  THE  FAITHLESS 
WIFE  MOTIF  IN  OLD  NORSE. 

In  the  introduction  to  an  edition  of  the  Halfs 
saga,1  while  discussing  the  episode  related  in  Chap. 
8,  the  Old  Norse  representative  of  a  widely  spread 
tale  of  a  faithless  wife,  I  have  given  expression  to 
the  commonly  held  belief  that  there  is  no  other 
trace  of  this  tale  in  Old  Norse  literature.  My 
friend,  Dr.  C.  N.  Gould  of  Chicago  University, 
has,  however,  since  called  my  attention  to  another 
anecdote  of  this  character,  which  ought  to  be 
recorded. 

In  the  Gpngu-Hrolfs  saga,  an  interesting  Ice- 
landic work  presumably  of  the  fourteenth  century,* 
it  is  related  that  Ingibjorg,  the  wife  of  Bjorn, 
Jarl  porgny's  councillor,  was  seduced  by  a  certain 
Mondull  Pattason,  and  further  that  the  faithless 
conduct  of  the  wife  was  perpetrated  under  the  eyes 
of  her  husband  ( ' '  Birni  asjaanda  "  ) .  Bjorn  was 
bound  hand  and  foot  (p.  307)  and  was  to  be 
hanged,  a  result  of  the  machinations  of  Mondull, 
who  had  brought  him  into  disfavor  with  the  Jarl 
and  among  other  things  made  him  appear  guilty 
of  theft  of  the  latter' s  valuable  belt,  the  gift  of 
Mondull.  For  the  rest  it  appears  that  Mgndull 
is  a  dwarf  and  that  he  has  employed  magic  means 
to  secure  the  affection  of  Bjorn' s  wife  (she  becomes 
black  and  swollen  as  a  result  of  this  magic  and  is 
restored  to  her  normal  condition  by  the  applica- 
tion of  a  magic  ointment  and  the  drinking  of  a 
remembrance-potion,  minniiveig}.  The  rescuer 
of  Bjorn  is  none  other  than  Gongu-Hrolfr,  who 
compels  the  dwarf  to  free  Bjorn,  release  Ingi- 
bjorg  from  the  spell  and  restore  to  their  proper 
place  and  function  Hroll's  severed  feet.  All  this 
Mondull  does  and  disappears,  to  return  after- 
wards, however  (p.  316  ff. ),  and  render  Hrolfr 
further  assistance. 

The  essential  situation  of  this  tale,3  viz.,  the 
helpless  husband,  perforce  an  eye-witness  to  his 
wife's  infidelity,  is  then  here  preserved  ;  the  other 
features  are  mostly  taken  from  the  Icelandic  su- 

1  Altnordische  Sagabibliothek,  Heft  14.  Halle,  1909,  p.  19. 
'Fornaldarsb'gur  Norftrlanda,  ed.  Rafn,  in,  p.  298  ff. 
*Cf.  Antoniewicz,    Anz.  /.    deutsch.    Altert.,  xiv,  245, 
1888. 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


47 


perstitions  relative  to  dwarfs  and  the  whole  loosely 
incorporated  in  the  narrative  of  Hr61fr. 4 

II.    SlGURj>AKVIJ>A   EN   SKAMMA   12. 

This  strophe  reads  in  Gering's  edition  of  the 
Eddie  poems 6  : 

Ltitum  sunfara  fe.br  i  sinni, 

skalal  ulf  ala  ungan  lengi  ; 

hveim  wrbr  holfia  hefnd  leltari 

stban  til  sdtta,  at  sunr  lifit. 

The  general  meaning  of  the  strophe  is  perfectly 
clear  :  Brynhildr  having  in  the  previous  strophe 
urged  her  husband  to  kill  SigurSr,  suggests  in 
these  lines  that  the  latter' s  young  son  be  also  put 
out  of  the  way,  lest  he  later  take  vengeance  for 
his  father's  death. 

Into  this  strophe  Gering  has  admitted  but  one 
textual  emendation,  viz. ,  the  addition  of  the  nega- 
tive suffix  t  to  the  lifi  of  Codex  regius,  an  emen- 
dation originating  with  Svend  Grundtvig 6  and  ac- 
cepted by  Finnur  Jonsson,7  by  Bugge,8  and  by 
Sijmons.9  The  Grimm  brothers  retained  the  read- 
ing lifi  of  the  Codex,  punctuating  at  the  end  with 
an  interrogation  point,10  which  interpretation  a 
variety  of  editors  have  followed  since.11  That 
none  of  these  readings  is  satisfactory  12  is  apparent 
enough  to  one  attempting  to  read  the  strophe  and 
is  acknowledged  by  Sijmons.13 

"While  reading  this  poem  the  feeling  that  the 
context  required  sifir  rather  than  sifian  led  me  to 

4  In  speaking  of  the  Sanskrit  version  of  this  tale  (Hdlfs 
saga,  p.  18),  I  have  misstated  the  source,  which  is  So- 
madeva  Bhatta's  Kathdsaritsagara  (ed.  Durgaprasad  & 
Parab,  Bombay,  1889,  p.  366  f.;  translated  by  C.  H. 
Tawney,  Calcutta,  1880-84  \_Bibliotheca  Indica],  II,  p. 
53  f. );  the  Pancatantra-story  (iv,  5,  ed.  Hertel,  Cam- 
bridge, 1908  \=  Harvard  Oriental  Series,  11]  244  ff.),  is 
at  best  but  remotely  related. 

6Lieder  der  dlteren  Edda,  Paderborn,  1904,  p.  346  f. 

6  Scemundar  Edda,  Kbhn.  1868,  p.  128. 

7  Eddalieder,  n,  p.  55,  Halle,  1890 ;   he  emended  fur- 
ther hefnd  to  h2nd. 

*PBBeitr.  xxn,  119 f.,  1897;  Bugge  also  approved  of 
Jonsson' s  emendation  of  hefnd  to  liond. 

9Lieder  der  Edda,  p.  369,  Halle^  1901. 

10LUder  der  alien  Edda,  Berlin,  1815,  p.  246. 

11  For  list  cf.  Gering's  critical  apparatus,  1.  c. 

"And  the  further  emendation  of  Vigfusson,  Opb.,  I, 
295,  does  not  help  the  matter. 

11  L.  c.  in  apparat. 


consult  the  phototypic  edition  of  Codex  regiw," 
where  I  found  si/>',  which  in  this  MS.  is  the  com- 
mon abbreviation  for  si/>an  and  sf/r.15  This  abbre- 
viation has  in  several  places  of  the  Edda  been  re- 
solved differently  by  different  editors,1'  and  in  fact 
in  our  strophe  Rask "  has  read  si/v,  though  his 
reading  appears  to  have  remained  unnoticed  since 
and  is  not  included  in  Gering's  variant-apparatus. 
Rask's  punctuation,  especially  the  interrogation 
point  at  the  end  of  the  strophe,  does  not,  how- 
ever, correspond  with  my  interpretation,  and  I 
trust  it  will  not  be  superfluous  again  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  strophe.  Sifir  is  metrically  preferable 
to  sifian,  giving  a  regular  tetrasyllabic  half-verse 
of  A-type,  while  it  gives,  without  textual  emend- 
ations of  any  sort,  the  meaning  required  by  the 
context. 

The  last  two  verses  would  then  read  : 


hveim  verbr  holba 
sifir  til  sdtta, 


hefnd  leltari, 
at  sunr  lift. 


And  the  meaning  of  the  strophe  would  be  :  "  Let 
us  send  the  son  along  with  the  father,  one  should 
not  long  foster  the  young  wolf  ;  vengeance  upon 
any  man  is  easier  and  he  has  less  chance  of  recon- 
ciliation, as  long  as  the  son  (of  the  man  he  has 
killed)  still  lives."18 

III.    THE  RELATION  OF  Vgluspd  TO  Baldrs 
drawnar. 

The  short  Eddie  poem,  Baldrs  drawnar  (also 
called  Vegtamslcviba) ,  was  not  included  in  the 
Eddie  Codex  regius,  but  is  preserved  in  the  con- 
siderably later  MS.  AM  748,  4°.  As  to  the  age 
of  the  poem  itself  there  is  general  disagreement 
among  Norse  scholars,  only  a  small  minority 
claiming  for  it  any  considerable  degree  of  an- 

"Curav.  "Wimmer  and  J&nsson,  Kbhn.,  1891,  p.  68. 

15  Cf.  Introduction,  p  lii. 

16  Cf.   Gering,  Vollstdndiges  Worterbuch  zu  den  Liedern 
der  Edda,  1903,  pp.  920-922  and  the  apparatus  in  Ger- 
ing's Edda-edition  under  passages  cited. 

"Edda  Scemundar  hinnsfroKa,  Stockholm,  1818,  p.  217. 

18  For  hefna  with  dative  of  person  upon  whom  vengeance 
is  taken  cf.  Fritzner,  Ordbog,  I,  750.  for  the  construction 
hveim  verbr  slbr  til  sdtta,  at — cf.  Fritzner,  op.  cit.,  in,  914, 
with  the  citation  from  Heilagramanna  saga,  ed.  Unger, 
Christiania,  1877,  n,  44,  peir  ug]>o — ,  at  \>eim  myndi  nel:- 
kvet  til  meins  ver'Sa,  ef  fieir  gorfti  fiat,  (nekkvet  is  here 
adverbial  like  st/rr). 


48 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[  Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


tiqfcity.  Of  this  minority  Finnur  Jonsson  for- 
merly regarded  it 19  as  one  of  the  oldest  of  its  kind 
and  even  accepted  a  conjecture  of  Vigfusson,20 
that  it  was  by  the  same  author  as  the  prymskvifia, 
though  he  has  evidently  since  given  up  the  latter 
idea  and  speaks  less  positively  of  the  poem's  age.21 
Mogk,  on  the  other  hand,  who  recognizes  its  close 
relation  to  the  VyluspA,  regards  it  as  of  later  origin 
than,  and  in  fact  dependent  upon,  the  latter.22 
The  same  idea  is  developed  more  in  detail  by 
Neckel.23 

As  the  relation  between  the  two  poems  seems 
to  me  rather  the  reverse  of  the  one  suggested  by 
Mogk,  I  venture  to  give  the  reasons  for  my  view. 
In  so  far  as  the  current,  mostly  subjective,  criteria 
for  the  relative  age  of  the  Eddie  poems  are  con- 
cerned, Jonsson' s  judgment  makes  in  this  case  the 
greater  appeal  to  me,  as  the  comprehensive  and 
cumbersome  Vqluspa  in  terms  of  literary  genre  is 
at  any  rate  later  than  the  type  ofBaldrs  draumar, 
which,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  is  precisely  that 
of  the  admittedly  ancient  ])rymskvi/>a. 

The  strophes  of  Vsp.  which  show  practical  iden- 
tity of  content  with  Bdr.  are  28-34, "  but  I  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  the  whole  composition  of 
Vsp.  was  suggested  by  Bdr.,  the  latter  furnishing 
the  idea  for  a  framework  to  the  author's  account 
of  ragnar0k.  The  following  tabulation  of  cor- 
responding features  in  the  two  poems  will  serve 
to  demonstrate  their  unquestionable  relationship 
and  can  conveniently  be  made  a  basis  for  such 
deductions  as  follow  therefrom  : 


Vsp. 

The  vglva  is  a  giantess 
(str.  2). 

When  visited  by  the  aged 
Odin  (enn  aldni)  she  is 
sitting  alone  in  the  open 
air  (uti.,  str.  28). 


Bdr. 

The  vglva  is  a  giantess 
(str.  13). 

The  aged  Odin  (aldenn 
yautr,  str.  2,  13)  rides  to 
Niflhel  to  consult  vglva  ; 
he  finds  her  eastward  of 
Hel's  gate,  sleeping  un- 
protected from  snow,  rain 
and  dew  (str.  2-5). 


190ldnorske  og  oldisl.  litt.  hist.,  I,  147 f.,  1894.  Cf. 
also  Grundtvig,  Er  Nordens  gamle  Literatur  norsk  ?  Hist. 
Tidskr.,  iv  Ksekke,  1,  89 f.,  1869. 

20 Corp.  poet,  bor.,  i,  181,  1883. 

21  Isl.  litt.  hist.,  1907,  p.  48, 

"Paul's  Grandr.,  11,  582,  1904. 

23  JBeitrdge  zur  Eddaforsehung,  1908,  p.  59  ff. 

24  The  numbers  of  the  strophes  cited  are    those    of 
Sijmons'  edition,  Halle,  1888. 


Odin  questions  her  (str.  28) 
and  gives  her  jewelry  in 
payment  for  prophecy 
(str.  30). 

She  prophecies  the  death  of 
Baldr  and  names  Hgt>r  as 
his  slayer  (str.  32;  33, 
1-2),  and  states  further 
that  a  son  of  Odin,  one 
night  old,  will  take  ven- 
geance for  his  death  (str. 
33,  3-4;  34,  1-2.). 


Valkyries  are  mentioned 
(str.  31)  and  the  mourn- 
ing of  Frigg  (str.  34, 
3-4). 


The  volva  recognizes  Odin 
apparently  by  fact  that 
he  has  but  one  eye  (str. 
28,  4;  29). 


The  episode  is  followed  by  a 
strophe  depicting  Loki's 
imprisonment  (str.  35). 
The  conclusion  of  the 
poem  is  largely  the  ac- 
count of  ragnar0k  and 
the  new  age  following. 


Odin  puts  4  questions  to 
her  (str.  6,  8,  10,  12). 


In  answer  to  Odin's  ques- 
tions the  vglva  prophe- 
cies Baldr's  death  (str. 
7),  names  Ho}>r  as  his 
slayer  (str.  9),  and  states 
that  a  son  of  Odin 
(Vdli?),  one  night  old, 
will  take  vengeance  (str. 
11  ;  str.  11,  2-4  is  almost 
word  for  word  identical 
with  Vsp.  33,  4;  34, 
1-2). 

Odin  asks  as  the  4th  ques- 
tion who  the  maids  are 
that  will  mourn  (str.  12, 
3-4),  the  obvious  answer, 
Valkyries,  is  lacking. 

The  volva  recognizes  Odin 
apparently  by  his  final 
question  as  to  the  maids 
that  will  mourn  for  Baldr 
(str.  13,  1-2). 

The  volva  concludes  with  a 
threatening  allusion  to 
the  liberation  of  Loki 
and  the  coming  of  rag- 
nar0k. 


This  comparison  would  suggest  the  following 
text-criticism  of  the  Vsp. :  str.  31,  1-2  with  str. 
34,  3-4  forms  a  single  strophe  following  str.  34, 
1-2  ;  str.  31,  3-6  is  an  interpolated  />ula,  the 
interpolation  suggested  by  the  mention  of  Valky- 
ries ;  str.  33  is  incomplete,  as  verses  3-4  certainly 
do  not  belong  with  it  ;  str.  33,  3-4  with  str.  34, 
1-2  forms,  on  the  other  hand,  the  following  com- 
plete strophe  ;  str.  35  perhaps  does  not  belong  to 
this  episode  at  all.  The  original  order  of  strophes 
of  our  episode  would  then  have  been  28  ;  29  (?) ; 
30  ;  32  ;  33,  1-2  ;  33,  3-4  +  34,  1-2  ;  31,  1-2 
+  34,  3-4. 

With  reference  to  the  union  of  str.  31,  1-2  with 
str.  34,  3-4,  it  may  be  said  that  the  mourning  for 
Baldr  played  an  important  part  in  the  old  myths 
connected  with  his  death,  and  Odin,  Frigg  and 
the  Valkyries  are  in  the  Gylfag'mning  of  Snorra 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


49 


Edda  expressly  associated  as  mourners,"  which 
association,  so  far  as  Odin  and  the  Valkyries  are 
concerned,  goes  back  to  the  Husdrdpa  of  Ulfr 
Uggason,  a  scaldic  poem  of  the  tenth  century.16 

If  the  lines  are  to  be  thus  understood,  the 
goftfijoftar  of  Cod.  reg.  must  be  interpreted  as  a 
collective  term  for  the  gods  or  their  home,  not  as 
meaning  Goths  or  land  of  the  Goths,  as  is  its  com- 
mon significance  in  the  heroic  songs  of  the  Edda  and 
of  the  Hervarar  saga.  Whether  in  these  latter 
places  GoKfijoK  —  "  Goths,"  "land  of  Goths"  be 
explained  as  a  phonological  development  from 
Got/>j6$,"  or  as  due  to  the  influence  of  words 
compounded  with  goft, 28  the  fact  remains  that  both 
Goths  and  their  country  are  out  of  place  in  Vsp. 
This  fact  was  recognized  by  MulleuhofF,  in  that 
he  suggested  taking  the  word  (gotfij6ftar^n  in  ap- 
pellative meaning  as  applicable  to  warriors  or 
heroes  generally,  a  meaning  justified  by  no  other 
occurrence  and  just  as  much  at  variance  with  the 
context  as  Goths  or  their  country.  The  vitt  of 
komnar  applied  to  Valkyries  can  only  mean 
"come  from  far  and  wide,"  or  at  most  "come 
from  a  distance,"  and  I  cannot  see  why  it  should 
not  signify  that  they  were  assembling  from  the 
plying  of  their  vocation  for  the  express  purpose 
of  attending  Baldr's  funeral  rites.  The  idea  that 
the  Valkyries  are  represented  here  as  going  out 
to  ply  their  vocation  in  mortal  battles  stands  in 
relation  to  nothing  that  precedes  or  follows  ;  it  has 
by  Mullenhoff  (1.  c. )  been  strained  into  accord 
with  an  utterly  wrong  theory  of  the  poem's  com- 
position. 

Valkyries  as  an  answer  to  Odin's  final  question 
in  Bdr.,  inevitable  as  it  would  seem  to  be,  does 
not  agree  with  a  current  idea 30  that  this  question 
must  be  a  riddle.  This  idea  finds  its  justification 
through  analogy  with  the  final  question  (which 

KSn.  Ed.,  Hafniae,  1848,  i,  p.  176. 

26  F.  J6nsson,  Den  norsk-islandske  Skjaldediglning,  I, 
1908.  A.  p.  138,  B.  p.  129.  Cf.  Mogk,  PBBeitr.,  vn, 
289  f.,  1880. 

"Heinzel,  Uber  die  Hervarar  saga,  Sitz.ber.  d.  phil.- 
hist.  Cl.  d.  kaiserl.  Akad.  d.  Wiss.  zu  Wien,  cxiv,  Heft  2. 
Wien,  1887,  p.  490. 

28Noreen,  Altisl.  und  altnorw.  Gram.*,  §  240,  Anra.  4, 
1903. 

29 Deutsche  Altertumskunde,  V,  p.  Ill  ;  cf.  p.  78,  1883. 

80  Cf.  Bugge,  Studier,  I,  252  ff.,  1881.  Sijmons,  Lieder 
der  Edda,  163  in  apparat.,  1888,  etc. 


is,  however,  itself  no  riddle !)  in  VafJ>ru/>nismal 
and  Heifireksgdtur,  first,  in  the  fact  that  the  volva 
does  not  answer  it,  secondly,  in  the  fact  that 
through  it  she  recognizes  the  identity  of  the 
questioner,  Odin.  Such  is,  however,  not  the  in- 
evitable conclusion  from  either  fact,  since  the 
answer  may  be  lacking  because  it  is  so  self-appar- 
ent not  only  to  the  two  beings  concerned,  but  also 
to  the  poet's  Icelandic  audience  ;  and,  again, 
the  vplva's  inference  that  Odin  is  the  questioner 
may  well  rest  upon  the  content  of  the  question's 
self-apparent  answer.  That  is,  if  it  was  a  charac- 
teristic feature  of  the  myth  relating  to  Baldr's 
funeral  that  Odin  attended  accompanied  by  the 
Valkyries,  as  is  amply  attested  by  the  Husdrdpa, 
an  answer  to  this  question  was  superfluous  and  the 
question  itself  was  sufficient  to  betray  the  identity 
of  the  questioner,  as  it  was  meant  to  do. 

The  fact  seems  hardly  to  have  been  sufficiently 
emphasized  that  Baldrs  draumar  presents  in 
every  way  an  older  phase  of  the  Baldr-myth  than 
do  these  verses  of  the  Vpluspd  ;  it  knows  as  yet 
nothing  of  the  mistletoe  as  the  destructive  weapon 
and  nothing  of  Loki's  part  in  bringing  about 
Baldr's  death.31  It  knows  only  that  Baldr  was 
slain  by  Hppr,  who  was  in  turn  killed  by  a  son 
of  Odin  with  Rindr  (Vali?),  which  corresponds 
in  so  far  entirely  with  Saxo's  version  of  the  same 
myth.32 

"The  hrofirbarm  of  Bdr.  9  can  in  no  sense  mean  the 
mistletoe,  as  "  most  investigators  believe"  (Neckel,.B«<r. 
z.  Eddaforsch.  p.  61,  1908),  but  must,  however  it  finally 
be  spelled  and  explained,  from  the  context  refer  to  Baldr 
himself  (cf.  Gering,  Edda-  Worterbuch,  p.  466,  Grundtvig, 
Er  Nordens  gamle  Lilt,  norsk?  p.  92  ff.,  1869,  Sceinundar 
Edda,  p.  187,  1868,  etc.)  :  biniy  means  "to  this  place,"  i. 
e.  to  Hel,  cf.  use  of  her  in  str.  7,  for  use  of  berr  cf.  d  b&l 
of  berr  in  str.  11.  Neither  need  the  allusion  in  the  last 
strophe  of  Baldrs  draumar  to  Loki's  part  in  ragnar0k  and 
his  previous  confinement  be  interpreted  as  indicating  that 
Loki  had  played  a  leading  r6le  in  the  death  of  Baldr,  in 
fact  it  brings  Loki  into  no  necessary  relation  with  the 
preceding.  If  it  be  necessary  to  seek  such  relation,  it 
would  be  most  natural  to  find  it  in  a  connection  with  what 
most  immediately  precedes,  identifying  thevglva  with  the 
mother  of  the  three  gigantic  beings  begotten  by  Loki,  as 
was  done  by  Bergmann  ( Weggewohnls  Lied,  Strassburg, 
1875,  p.  30,  35). 

82  It  may  be  noted  by  the  way  that  the  Vsp.  also  need 
not  be  interpreted  as  ascribing  to  Loki  a  part  in  the  death 
of  Baldr  (cf.  Niedner,  Zeilsehr.  f.  deutsches  Altert.,  41,  p. 
307,  1897),  in  that  its  str.  35  does  not  stand  in  any  neces- 


50 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


if  then  Bdr.  contains  in  some  respects  at  least 
more  original  features  of  the  Baldr-myth  than 
Vsp.  and  the  fact  of  an  intimate  relation  between 
the  two  is  indisputable,  there  remains  but  the 
question  whether  the  author  of  Vsp.  has  used  Bdr. 
or  both  go  back  directly  or  indirectly  to  a  com- 
mon source.  Inasmuch  as  both  show  a  nearly 
identical  strophe,  such  common  source  can  have 
been  no  other  than  a  poetical  one,  i.  e.  at  most  an 
earlier  version  of  the  Bdr.  or  a  very  similar 
poem.33  That  the  latter  may  have  been  the  case 
I  am  not  prepared  to  deny  ;  on  the  contrary, 
I  would  only  insist  that  such  earlier  version  of 
the  Bdr.  can  not  have  differed  greatly  from  the 
one  preserved,  either  in  form  or  content.  To  the 
author  of  Vsp.,  Bdr.  suggested  a  framework  for 
his  primarily  eschatological  poem,  the  allusion  to 
ragnar0k  made  by  the  volva  in  the  last  strophe 
being  developed  by  him  into  a  detailed  account 
of  that  event  and  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  same 
volva.34  This,  as  I  am  aware,  does  not  at  all 
correspond  with  MullenhofFs  theory  of  a  three- 
fold structure  of  Vsp.,K  but  in  spite  of  Mullen  - 
hofPs  thunders  one  must  accredit  Bang36  with  a 
much  less  forced  and  artificial  theory  of  the  poem's 
composition,  whether  or  not  one  agree  with  him 
entirely  as  to  its  sources. 

A.  LEROY  ANDREWS. 

Cornell  University. 


TEXTUAL  NOTES  ON  THE  ME. 
GENESIS  AND  EXODUS. 

52   ftat  weldet  alle  ftinge  wit  rigt  and  [s]  HI. 
The  metre  requires  welt,  the  form  found  in  54, 
two  lines  below. 

369-370   And  niftful  neddre,  loft  an  lifter, 
sal  gliden  on  hise  brest  nefter. 

sary  connection  with  the  facts  of  the  Baldr-myth  preced- 
ing ;  in  fact  in  the  Hauksbok- version  of  Vsp. ,  from  which 
the  Baldr-strophes  are  lacking,  this  strophe  appears,  but 
in  an  entirely  different  place,  viz.,  after  str.  24. 

5SCf.  Niedner,  1.  c.,  pp.  37  f.,  309. 

"With  reference  to  the  framework  of  Vsp.,  see  also 
Grundtvig,  Bemcerkninger  til  Volvespaadommen,  sserskilt 
aftryk  af  Dansk  Maanedsskrift,  1866,  andet  Bind.,  p.  5  ff . 

35  Deutsche  Altertumskunde,  v,  5  ff . 

36  Voluspaa    og    do    Sibyllinske     Orakler,  =  Christiania 
VidenskabsselskabsForhandlinger,  1879,  No.  9,  p.  6f. 


The  second  line  of  the  couplet  would  be  greatly 
improved  if  we  should  read,  on  his  brest  sal  gliden 
nefter.  But  emendations  of  this  kind,  of  which  a 
number  have  already  been  made  by  Kolbing, 
Holthausen,  and  others,  are  not  entirely  con- 
vincing. Ic  always  remains  possible  that  the 
author  was  occasionally  guilty  of  writing  unmet- 
rical  lines. 

519-521   Also  he  god  adde  ofte  bi-sogte, 
Wislike  was  him  in  herte  brogt 
ftis  midelerdes  biginning. 

For  bi-sogte,  read  bisogt. 

659-661   Nembrot  gat  his  feres  red 

To  maken  a  tur. 

Morris  translates  gat  by  'granted.'  Instead, 
read  gaf,  as  in  1949,  4047,  4064.  Cf.  Comestor, 
Gen.  38,  Consilio  Nemrod  wlentis  regnare,  ccepe- 
runt  cedificare  turrim. 

1207-1208   Dre  ger  woren  ysaae  on 

Quane  he  was  fro  teding  don. 

Morris  in  his  notes  explains  teding  as  for  tend- 
ing. Holthausen,  Archiv,  evil,  389,  in  support 
of  this  cites  Comestor,  Gen.  56,  ablaclatus  est. 
The  word  should  be  letting  (—  '  lactatio').  The 
verb  tetten  occurs  2612  (Kolbing' s  emendation 
for  MS.  letten).  The  noun  tette  occurs  2621,  and 
teten,  3480. 

1323-1324    Oc  abraham  it  wulde  wel 

quat-so  god  bad,  ftwerted  he  it  newer 

[a  del. 

The  second  line  of  the  couplet  probably  owes  its 
length  to  the  incorporation  of  a  gloss.  It  origin- 
ally read,  ftwerted  he  it  neuer  a  del.  The  ante- 
cedent of  it  in  1323,  1324,  and  in  1322  is  the 
command  of  God  of  which  Abraham  tells  in  his 
previous  speech.  The  words  quat-so  god  bad  were 
probably  added  by  some  reader  to  whom  the  it  of 
1323  seemed  obscure.  Cf.  the  footnote  to  p.  17 
of  Morris's  edition  for  a  similar  gloss.  A  semi- 
colon is  needed  after  1323. 

1431-1432    Or  he  ivel  homward  cumen  was, 
Ysaac  was  cume  to  gerasis. 

Kolbing,  Eng.  Stud,  in,  293,  proposes  to  read 
gerasas  or  geraras.  Comestor,  Gen.  61,  has,  Eo 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


51 


tempore  Isaac  habitabat  in  gerara.  Gen.  and  Ex. 
has  geraris,  1167,  and  gerasis,  1516.  Comestor 
has  geraris,  Gen.  69  and  elsewhere.  Read  geraris 
in  1432  and  1516,  and  cumen  is  in  1431.  The 
clash  of  tenses  is  similar  to  that  in  numerous  other 
passages  ;  e.  g.,  1735-1736  : 

Do  sag  iacob  laban  wurfi  wrofi, 
Vnder  him  ben  leng  is  him  loft. 

Cf.  also  601-604,  885-886,  2543-2546,  4001- 
4002. 

1585   And  fiu  salt  fie  betre  sped. 

Supply  hauen  after  salt. 

1653-1654  Rachel  was  blifie  andforfi  ghe  nam, 
And  Idddit  to  hire  fader  laban. 

For  nam,  read  ran,  a»  in  1393-1394  : 

Maiden  rebecca  fianne  ran, 
And  Idddit  to  hire  broker  laban. 

1808    Til  fie  daning  up  esten  it  brast. 

For  daning,  read  daining  ;  cf.  77,  daigening  ; 
1810,  daining  ;  3264,  daiening. 

1993-1994   So  michelfefioris  hem  told, 

He  hauen  him  bogt,  he  hauen  sold. 

Holthausen,  Arch,  fur  neu.  Spr.  evil,  391,  pro- 
poses to  supply  him  before  sold.  Kolbing,  Engl. 
Stud,  in,  303,  comments  as  follows,  "So  wie  sie 
(sc.  die  Ismaeliter)  ihn  gekauft  hatten,  so  haben 
sie  ihn  nun  wieder  verkauft,  oder — und  dieser 
deutung  wiirde  ich  den  vorzug  geben  ;  sie  (sc. 
Potiphar)  haben  ihn  gekauft,  jene  (sc.  die  Ism.) 
haben  ihn  verkauft,  d.  h.  es  wurde  soviel  geld 
geboten,  das  der  handel  zum  abschluss  kam." 
This  second  interpretation  can  hardly  be  other 
than  correct,  but  he,  meaning  Potiphar,  requires 
a  singular.  For  the  first  hauen,  read  haueft. 

2010    bitagte  him  his  hus  everilc  del. 

A  transposition,  his  hus  bitagte  him  would  mend 
the  metre. 

2459-2460  for  trewfie  and  gode  dedes  mide 
fion  ben  al  fiat  wech-dede. 

Matzner,  Altengl.  Sprachproben,  I.  88,  reads 
fior  for  fion,  and  translates,  '  For  both  truth  and 
good  deeds  there  are  then  all  that  watch-deed.' 
Morris  reads  don  for  fion,  and  translates,  '  For 
truth  and  with  good  deeds,  done  is  then  all  that 


watch-deed. '  Read  don  bet :  '  For  truth  and 
good  deeds  therewith  avail  more  than  all  that 
vigil.' 

2521-2522   An  her  endede,  tofulin  uris, 
tie  boc  fie  is  hoten  genesis. 

Matzner,  Altenglische  Sprachproben,  I,  89,  cor- 
rects in  wis  to  i  -  wis.  For  endede  read  endefi 
(=  Explicit  liber  Genesis).  Compare  2538,  Her 
nu  bi-ginned  exodus.  The  confusion  of  d  and  ft 
is  common  in  the  MS.  Apparently  the  copyist 
had  before  him  ended. 

2753   And  ben  sone  horn  numen. 

Read  homward,  for  metrical  reasons,  as  in 
1431,  2376. 

2755   And  gunen  him  fiore  tellen. 
Read  And  him  gunen,  for  metrical  reasons. 

2804-2805   And  [he]  it  warp  vt  of  hise  hond, 
And  wurfi  sone  an  uglike  snake. 

He  was  supplied  by  Kolbing,  Engl.  Stud,  in, 
313.    For  wurfi,  read  it  wurfi  ;  cf.  2808,  it  bi-cam, 
and  2917,  it  wurfi. 
2839-2840  Moyses  and  his  wif  sephoram 

And  hise  childre  wifi  him  nam. 

Omit  and  in  2839. 

3509-3510    Oc  horedom  fiat  fiu  ne  do, 
ne  wend  no  lecherie  to. 

After  horedom  insert  loke  ;  compare  3511,  Loke 
fie  welfiat  fiu  ne  stele.  It  is  true  that  3513,  False 
witnesse  fiat  fiu  ne  bere,  seems  to  justify  the  MS. 
reading  of  3509,  but  fiat  fiu  ne  bere  is  really 
dependent  upon  Loke  fie  wel  of  3511. 

3534   And  two  ofiere  to  maken  it  wel. 

Transpose  so  as  to  read  ofiere  two.     Compare 
2132,  fiis  ofiere.   vii.,  and  686,  ofier  sum.     The 
change  seems  to  be  required  by  metre  and  euphony. 
3963—3964   And  he  wurfi  fio  for  anger  wrofi, 
And  fiis  prikefi  and  negt  slofi. 

He  is  Balaam.  The  word  asse  has  been  omitted 
after  fiis  ;  compare  3955,  3961,  3965,  3967,  3971, 
3973,  in  each  of  which  the  author  writes  fiis  asse. 
3978  fie  let  god  him  fiat  angel  sen. 

God  is  Morris's  correction  for  MS.  gofi.  For  fie 
read  fio,  as  in  1416,  which  Morris  has  emended  in 
his  glossary. 


52 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


4009-4010   His  lif  left  blitie,  his  ending  sal, 
fte  timeS  al-so  'Sts  timen  sal. 

Inasmuch  as  4010  corresponds  to  Comestor, 
Num.  33,  Moriatur  anima  mea  morte  justorum,  et 
fiant  mea  horum  similia,  it  is  probable  that  Se 
timeft  is  an  error  of  the  copyist  for  me  time. 

4027-4028   fiis  leun  sal  ofier  folc  freten, 

Lond  canaan  al  preige  bi-geten. 

For  al,  read  als. 

4112   fiat  al  fiinfolc  wurft  war. 

Some  emendation  is  required  for  metrical  rea- 
sons. Supply  'Sor-o/  after  folc. 


W.  STRUNK,  JR. 


Cornell  University. 


SPANISH  LITERATURE. 

RAMON  MENENDEZ  PIDAL,  L'Jfyopte  eastillane 
a  travers  la  litterature  espagnole.  Traduction  de 
HENRI  MERIMEE,  avec  une  preface  de  ERNEST 
MERIMEE.  Paris,  Colin,  1910.  12mo.,  xxvi 
+  306  pp. 

R.  Mene"ndez  Pidal  has  probably  shed  more  new 
light  on  the  Old  Spanish  epic  than  any  other  liv- 
ing man,  and  students  of  that  subject  have  learned 
to  approach  each  new  publication  of  his  with  the 
certainty  of  finding  new  facts  and  novel  points  of 
view.  They  will  not  be  disappointed  in  the  pres- 
ent volume,  although  not  properly  a  work  of  re- 
search. It  consists  of  the  lectures  delivered  in 
French  by  the  author  at  Johns  Hopkins  Univer- 
sity in  the  spring  of  1909,  and  now  made  access- 
ible to  the  public  in  a  revised  form.  The  titles  of 
the  seven  lectures  (Les  origines  de  I' epopee  eastil- 
lane, Castille  et  Leon,  Le  "Po&me  demon  Old," 
Le  Gid  et  Chimene,  Le  ' '  romancero, ' '  Le  theatre 
classique,  La  matiere  epique  dans  la  poesie  moderne) 
indicate  sufficiently  that  the  speaker  had  no  inten- 
tion of  offering  his  hearers  a  complete  analysis  of 
the  Old  Spanish  epic  ;  his  desire  was  to  generalize 
as  much  as  possible  and  to  make  clear  the  forces 
which  formed  the  epic  spirit,  and  the  power  which 
it  exerted  on  the  literature  of  later  times.  In  this 


he  has  been  eminently  successful,  without  giving 
a  detailed  account  of  any  of  the  poetic  themes 
except  those  of  Fernun  Gonzalez  and  the  Cid. 

The  first  chapter  is  the  one  calculated  to  excite 
the  most  interest  among  scholars,  and  will  cer- 
tainly provoke  discussion,  for  it  contains  a  new 
theory  of  the  origin  of  the  early  Castilian  epic 
poems.  It  has  long  been  the  fashion,  supported 
chiefly  by  the  writings  of  Gaston  Paris,  to  declare 
the  Spanish  medieval  epics  children  of  the  French, 
which  were  certainly  more  numerous  and  more 
fully  developed.  A  few  passages  in  the  Poema 
del  Cid,  showing  knowledge  of  French  methods  ; 
a  number  of  Caroliugian  romances,  obviously  based 
on  the  later  poems  dealing  with  the  twelve  peers  ; 
the  stories  of  Bernardo  del  Carpio  and  Mainet, 
owing  their  inception  to  French  legends  ; — this 
was  the  basis  for  the  argument.  The  attempt  has 
even  been  made  (not  with  success  in  the  reviewer's 
opinion)  to  show  that  the  meter  of  the  Poema 
was  an  adaptation  of,  or  approximation  to,  the 
French  alexandrine.  It  was  assumed  that  epics 
did  not  appear  in  Spain  till  after  the  French 
heroic  poetry  had  attained  full  growth. 

But  the  increased  knowledge  within  a  few  years 
of  the  unexpected  extent  and  variety  of  the  Cas- 
tilian poems  (knowledge  due,  in  large  measure,  to 
R.  Menendez  Pidal  himself)  has  caused  the  French 
theory  to  look  less  imposing.  And  now  the  youiig 
professor  of  Madrid  declares  boldly  that  the  Gailic 
element  in  the  Castilian  epics  on  native  subjects  is 
negligible,  and  that  the  true  source  is  to  be  sought 
in  Germanic  traditions,  in  the  legends  and  poetry 
brought  with  them  by  the  Visigoths  when  they 
entered  Spain. 

His  argument  may  be  summarized  thus  :  There 
is  no  evidence  that  French  civilization  or  literature 
penetrated  Spain  before  about  1100.  The  events 
which  gave  rise  to  the  epics  on  Fern  tin  Gonzalez 
and  the  Infantes  de  Lara  occurred  in  the  tenth 
century  ;  the  first  poems  were  probably  composed 
soon  after  the  deeds.  There  is  slight  French  in- 
fluence in  the  Poema  del  Cid  and  later  poems  ;  but 
in  general  the  whole  conception  and  method  of 
treatment  differ  in  France  and  Castile.  The  ex- 
istence of  songs  of  epic  nature  among  the  early 
Germanic  tribes  is  attested  by  Tacitus  ;  other  wit- 
nesses can  be  adduced  for  the  same  phenomenon 
among  the  Visigoths  in  the  fourth  century,  but 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


53 


unfortunately  not  after  their  conquest  of  Spain. 
There  is,  however,  every  reason  to  suppose  that 
they  still  celebrated  their  national  heroes  in  verse. 
One  of  them  was  Walter  of  Spain,  or  Walter  of 
Aquitania,  who  lived  at  the  time  of  Attila  and  was 
famous  all  over  Europe.  His  legend  was  put  into 
Latin  hexameters  by  the  monk  Ekkehard  (tenth 
century).  His  story  is  also  preserved  in  the 
Spanish  romance  of  Gaiferos  ( Wolf,  Primavera  y 
Flor  de  romances,  no.  173);  many  details  are 
strikingly  similar.  (We  cannot  repress  a  smile  at 
seeing  our  old  acquaintance  Gaiferos,  he  who  was 
manipulated  by  the  agile  fingers  of  Gines  de  Pasa- 
monte  for  the  benefit  of  Don  Quijote  (n,  26), 
converted  into  the  stout  hero  whose  adventures  we 
remember  reading,  long  ago,  in  SchefFel's  Ekke- 
hard'). The  customs  described  in  the  Castilian 
epics  are  Germanic.  Although  Spain  adopted 
some  themes  from  the  nation  to  the  north  (Ber- 
nardo, Mainet),  French  influence  upon  the  epics 
of  native  subject,  even  on  the  Poema  del  Cid,  which 
was  composed  at  the  time  when  French  civilization 
was  in  most  close  contact  with  that  of  Spain,  is  of 
the  slightest  and  purely  external.  The  rigorously 
historical  and  realistic  nature  of  the  Castilian  epic 
contrasts  sharply  with  the  exaggerations  and  en- 
chantments of  the  French. 

The  Castilians  were  the  only  people  of  the  Pen- 
insula, to  inherit  the  heroic  poetry  of  the  Visigoths. 
This  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Leonese  main- 
tained the  governmental  machinery  of  the  last 
Visigothic  rulers,  whilst  the  Castilians  rebelled 
against  it.  Castile  rested  upon  a  Celtiberian  foun- 
dation, and  Leon,  Aragon  and  Catalonia  were 
based  on  Iberian  stock. 

Such  is  the  substance  of  Mene"ndez  Pidal's 
theory,  which  is  of  far-reaching  importance  and 
cannot  fail  to  act  as  a  sharp  stimulus  to  Hispanic 
studies.  It  is  the  inevitable  result  of  the  recent 
discoveries  in  the  field  of  Spanish  medieval  poetry. 
So  long  as  two  poems  about  the  Cid  were  the  only 
Castilian  epics  known  to  exist  in  verse  form,  so 
long  as  the  historical  romances  were  thought  to  be 
relics  of  primitive  songs  woven  into  lengthy  poems 
only  under  French  influence,  and  the  Carolingian 
romances,  so  numerous  and  long,  were  known  to 
be  taken  from  French  sources,  it  was  easy  to  say 
that  what  few  Spanish  epics  existed  were  mere  off- 
shoots of  the  luxuriant  growth  across  the  Pyre- 


nees. But  the  work  of  Mila"  and  his  pupils,  which 
need  not  be  recapitulated  here,  has  made  that 
position  no  longer  impregnable.  The  Spaniards 
were  certain  to  attack  it.  It  is  beyond  doubt  that 
the  Carolingian  romances  are  of  late  origin  ;  that 
long  before  them  there  were  Castilian  epics  ex- 
hibiting strong  poetic  qualities  and  based  on 
purely  national  events.  Whence  did  they  come  ? 
Is  it  not  more  natural  to  assume  that  the  spirit  of 
heroic  poetry  among  the  Visigoths  persisted  un- 
broken than  to  suppose  conscious  imitation  of 
French  poems,  themselves  admittedly  of  Germanic 
origin  ?  Would  it  not  be  strange  that  these  imi- 
tations of  a  poetry  quite  different  in  character 
should  pitch  upon  subjects,  like  that  of  the  In- 
fantes de  Lara,  of  private  nature,  based  on  events 
one  or  two  hundred  years  old  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  inevitable  that  in  a  first 
presentation  of  such  a  new  and  remote  matter 
there  should  be  parts  not  altogether  clear  and  com- 
plete. The  novelty  of  Menendez  Pidul's  theory, 
as  well  as  the  broad  character  of  the  lectures, 
entail  a  certain  lack  of  absolute  proof.  It  will 
some  time  be  necessary,  for  example,  to  make  a 
fuller  comparative  study  of  the  French  and 
Spanish  epics  from  the  new  viewpoint,  and  in  the 
light  of  the  recent  labors  of  Be"dier,  for  it  is 
obvious  that  the  literary  origins  of  the  two  nations 
cannot  be  kept  entirely  separate.  And  one  might 
point  to  weak  links  in  the  chain  of  facts  adduced 
which  need  to  be  strengthened  by  additional  evi- 
dence. The  fact  that  the  copenctration  of  French 
and  Spanish  civilizations  was  greatest  about  1100 
does  not  prove  that  there  was  none  previous  to 
that  time  ;  and  it  is  not  likely  that  the  Oxford 
version  of  the  Chanson  de  Roland  was  the  first 
French  epic,  when  the  battle  which  gave  rise  to 
it  occurred  in  778.  One  can  perhaps  grant  with- 
out too  much  credulity  that  the  Visigoths  con- 
tinued to  sing  of  their  heroes  after  they  entered 
Spain,  even  if  there  is  not  the  slightest  proof  of  it, 
and  the  conquerors  were  few  in  number  compared 
with  the  earlier  Romanized  inhabitants  of  the 
Peninsula.  It  may  not  be  possible  to  maintain 
that  the  population  of  Castile  was  Celtiberian 
when  that  of  Leon  was  Iberian,  for  these  pre- 
Roman  distinctions,  dubious  in  themselves,  must 
have  been  altered  by  the  successive  waves  of  inva- 
sion that  swept  the  land  ;  it  is  not  easy  to  see  what 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


connection  that  has  with  the  preservation  of  Visi- 
gothic  poetical  tradition  in  Castile  alone,  if  that 
be  a  fact. 

Nor  are  we  prepared  to  concede  all  the  force 
which  Mene*ndez  Pidal  seems  to  give  to  the  analo- 
gies between  the  Gaiferos  romance  and  the  legend 
of  Walter  of  Aquitania.  The  resemblances  are 
striking,  as  Mila"  pointed  out  in  1874,  and  it  may 
be  that  Gaiferos  and  Melisenda  are  really  Wal- 
tarius  and  Hiltgunde,  their  names  modified  by 
contamination  with  other  heroes  and  heroines 
(Waifarius  and  Belissent).  But  the  story  might 
have  been  borrowed  from  foreign  or  erudite  sources 
as  well  as  from  native  tradition  more  than  a 
thousand  years  old  ;  and  the  facts  in  hand  hardly 
bear  out  the  assertion  that  ' '  nous  devons  considerer 
le  romance  de  Gaifer  comme  un  fragment,  conserve 
par  le  hasard,  du  lien  myste'rieux  qui  unit  1' epopee 
visigothe  a  la  poe"sie  heroique  castillane."  It  may 
be  that  the  lecturer  will  develop  this  point  more 
fully  at  some  future  time,  and  at  least  we  may 
hope  that  his  extreme  diligence  and  scholarship 
will  produce  the  new  documentation  required  to 
prove  a  theory  attractive  in  itself. 

In  the  other  chapters  devoted  to  the  Middle 
Ages  Menendez  Pidal  goes  fully  into  the  epic 
material  concerning  Ferndn  Gonzalez  and  the  Cid, 
and  mentions  only  by  the  way  King  Roderick, 
Bernardo  del  Carpio  and  the  Infantes  de  Lara. 
Chapter  II  describes  the  traditional  hostility  be- 
tween Castile  and  Le6n.  The  author  believes,  as 
was  noted  above,  that  the  source  of  it  was  a  basic 
difference  of  racial  structure  :  Castile,  the  Celti- 
berian,  being  progressive  and  rebellious  ;  Leon, 
Iberian  (as  were  also  Aragon  and  Catalonia), 
being  conservative,  fond  of  tradition  and  wedded 
to  the  Visigothic  system  of  government.  It  is 
heartily  to  be  wished  that  the  ideas  here  expressed 
in  all  too  concise  form  may  some  time  be  ex- 
panded ;  for  it  is  a  difficult  problem  to  determine 
what  elements  composed  the  population  of  the 
various  provinces  of  Spain  as  they  were  wrested 
from  the  Moors.  The  author  states  that  Castile 
alone  inherited  the  Visigothic  heroic  poetry,  just 
as  certain  regions  of  France,  in  which  the  Ger- 
manic element  was  strongest,  alone  produced  the 
Old  French  epic. 

The  Castilian  erudite  Poema  de  Fernan  Gon- 
zalez is  summarized  as  an  example  of  the  hatred 


of  Le6n,  preserved  in  an  attenuated  form,  but 
with  traces  of  the  popular  epic  which  surely  ex- 
isted. Even  after  the  union  of  Castile  and  Leon 
on  equal  terms  in  the  person  of  Fernando  I,  the 
enmity  and  wars  continued,  and  received  poetic 
expression  in  the  lost  eantares  of  the  death  of  king 
Fernando  (also  called  La  Partition  de  los  reinos~), 
and  of  El  Cerco  de  Zamora.  The  author  gives 
abstracts,  based  on  the  prose  versions  of  the  Pri- 
mera  cronica  general  and  the  Segunda  cronica 
general  (de  1844}  of  these  two  highly  poetic 
epics,  which  have  left  traces  in  some  of  the  finest 
fragments  of  the  romancero.1  The  epic  of  Fern&n 
Gonzalez  was  partisan,  strongly  favoring  Castile  ; 
that  of  the  Siege  of  Zamora,  more  lofty  and  artis- 
tic, presents  an  impartiality  which  foreshadows  the 
truly  national  epic,  the  Cantar  de  Mio  Cid. 

The  Cid  is  the  hero  of  chapters  III  and  IV,  and 
national  pride  inspires  in  the  lecturer  eloquent  and 
illuminating  paragraphs.  He  tells  the  story  of 
the  Mio  Cid,  and  makes  a  striking  comparison 
between  its  author  and  Veldzquez  ;  both  exem- 
plify the  best  side  of  the  Spanish  national  genius, 
a  tranquil  realism,  without  effort  or  exaggeration, 
that  remains  faithful  to  history  in  spirit,  however 
it  may  idealize  details.  The  later  epic  describing 
the  Youth  of  Rodrigo  is,  however,  a  degenerate 
invention,  full  of  gross  fictions.  Mene"ndez  Pidal 
distinguishes  two  versions  of  the  Rodrigo  :  the 
first,  preserved  in  the  prose  of  the  Cronica  de 
1844  '>  the  second,  the  well-known  Cronica  ri- 
mada,  which  he  places  at  about  1400.  Various 
details  prove  at  least  that  it  is  later  than  1344. 
In  the  prosified  story  the  Cid  is  still  respectful 
toward  his  monarch,  but  in  the  Cronica  rimada 
he  becomes  a  turbulent  rebel,  overawing  his  king 
by  sheer  bravado,  as  did  the  heroes  of  the  late 
French  chansons  de  geste.  This  is  the  type 
adopted  by  the  romancero. 

1  Men4ndez  Pidal  gives  the  reasons,  based  largely  upon 
the  as  yet  inaccessible  Segunda  cronica  general,  for  suppos- 
ing that  the  Cantar  del  rey  don  Fernando  or  de  la  partition 
de  los  reinos  was  distinct  from  the  Cantar  del  cerco  de 
Zamora.  Mild  (Obras  complctas,  vil,  262)  and  Menendez  y 
Pelayo  (Tratado  de  los  romances  viejos,  I,  335)  had  already 
promulgated  the  same  theory.  Each  new  study  of  the 
Old  Spanish  epic  makes  it  clearer  that  an  edition  of  the 
Cronica  de  1344  entire  is  an  absolute  necessity  if  we  are  to 
be  able  to  study  at  first  hand  the  prosifications  of  the  lost 
poems. 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


55 


The  gradual  evolution  of  the  Cid's  love-story  is 
laid  minutely  before  the  reader,  from  the  bare 
fact  of  history  and  the  conjugal  affection  of  the 
Mlo  Cid,  through  the  rude  courtship  described  in 
the  Rodrigo  and  the  romantic  incidents  added  by 
the  romancero,  to  the  love-drama  of  conflicting 
passions  imagined  by  Guille'n  de  Castro  and  given 
wide  currency  by  Corneille.  In  tracing  this  his- 
tory Mene"ndez  Pidal  brings  out  once  more  the 
fact  which  it  has  been  his  special  mission  to  estab- 
lish, namely,  that  it  is  now  possible  to  follow  the 
whole  development  of  the  Castilian  epic  from  the 
twelfth  century  to  the  romances,  without  solution 
of  continuity. 

Chapter  V,  although  compact,  is  a  most 
luminous  account  of  the  formation  and  devel- 
opment of  the  Spanish  ballad.  The  earliest  group 
of  romances  was  formed  by  the  disintegration  of 
the  old  historical  epics  ;  the  most  striking  epi- 
sodes were  remembered  and  repeated  by  the 
people,  and  changed  greatly  in  the  course  of 
time.  The  second  group  came  from  the  applica- 
tion of  a  similar  process  to  poems  of  jug  lares  who 
celebrated  French  heroes,  but  gave  them  deeds  of 
Spanish  invention.  Then  there  came  the  attract- 
ive cycle  of  romances  dealing  with  contemporary 
history  ;  Pedro  el  Cruel,  and  the  unceasing  strug- 
gles of  Moors  and  Christians.  They  show  a  pro- 
longation of  the  primitive  epic  spirit  which  is  not 
found  so  late  in  any  other  continental  nation.  It 
seems  to  have  lost  its  creative  force  at  about  the 
time  of  the  conquest  of  Granada,  but  the  popu- 
larity of  the  romances  viejos  increased  steadily 
throughout  the  sixteenth  century.  Fame  was 
followed  by  imitation.  The  erudite  poetasters 
Fuentes  and  Sepulveda  (1550-1)  attempted  to 
supplant  fiction  by  what  they  deemed  fact,  in 
verse,  with  lamentable  results.  Toward  1600  the 
greatest  poets  of  the  siglo  de  oro  wrote  romances 
on  every  conceivable  subject,  by  no  means  con- 
fining themselves  to  historical  themes.  Their 
poems  about  the  Cid  are  better  known  to  the 
educated  classes  to-day  than  are  the  old  ballads  on 
the  same  subject.  Meanwhile  the  romances  viejos 
lived  in  the  memory  of  the  lower  classes,  and  were 
carried  by  emigration  to  other  parts  of  the  world, 
so  that  modern  traditional  versions  are  found  all 
over  Spanish-  and  Portuguese-speaking  territory, 
— in  Morocco,  Turkey,  South  America,  Madeira, 


the  Azores,  etc.  This  is  a  field  which  has  been 
much  studied  by  MenSndez  Pidal  of  late  years, 
and  he  has  promised  a  Romancero  general  which 
shall  include  the  best  of  the  poems  gleaned  by 
modern  collectors  from  the  lips  of  peasants. 

The  sixth  chapter  deals  with  the  national  epic 
as  it  influenced  the  drama  of  the  siglo  de  oro. 
Mene"ndez  Pidal  implies,  though  he  does  not  make 
the  statement  in  so  many  words,  that  the  popu- 
larity of  the  old  ballads  in  the  sixteenth  century 
may  have  saved  Spain  from  the  fate  of  France, 
and  rescued  the  Spanish  stage  from  servile  subjec- 
tion to  pseudo-classic  rules.  The  subjects  of  Span- 
ish plays  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century 
were  taken  from  Italian  comedies  and  novelle,  or 
pastorals,  romances  of  chivalry  and  the  Celestina. 
In  1579  Juan  de  la  Cueva  produced  a  play,  La 
Muerle  del  rey  don  Sancho,  based  on  the  legends 
of  the  Siege  of  Zamora,  and  quoted  lines  from  a 
popular  romance  (Wolf,  Primavera,  no.  45). 
Cueva  opened  the  way  to  more  talented  authors 
who  exploited  the  national  history,  both  real  and 
legendary,  upon  the  stage.  Romance*,  and  espe- 
cially the  Chronicles,  those  repositories  of  lost 
epics,  were  plundered  to  enrich  the  drama.  Lope 
de  Vega,  with  seventy  plays,  was  the  most  brilliant 
and  fertile  in  this  field  ;  but  he  was  rivalled  by 
Guille'n  de  Castro,  Luis  Velez  de  Guevara,  and 
other  lesser  lights.  This  is  a  question  which  has 
already  been  discussed  at  some  length  by  Mene"ndez 
y  Pelayo  in  the  Antologia  de  poetas  liricos,  vol.  IX, 
pp.  259-279,  and  in  the  introductions  to  the 
Academy  edition  of  Lope  de  Vega  ;  but  Mene"ndez 
Pidal  has  succeeded  in  finding  additional  mate- 
rial. The  second  generation  of  dramatists,  led  by 
Calderon,  cast  aside  the  romances  as  such,  and 
preserved  the  heroic  fictions  only  in  a  modernized, 
emasculated  form. 

In  tracing  the  further  course  of  the  epic  matter, 
(chapter  VII)  the  eighteenth  century,  divided 
between  decadent  Gongorism  and  ill-digested 
pseudo-classicism,  could  furnish  little  material. 
One  might  have  expected,  perhaps,  a  mention  of 
the  romances  of  the  elder  Moratin,  some  of  which 
show  a  curious  knowledge  and  use  of  the  old  bal- 
lads. But  the  advent  of  romanticism  presaged 
renewed  interest  in  the  Middle  Ages.  In  Spain 
the  movement  was  initiated  from  without.  Eng- 
lishmen and  Germans  discovered  before  Spaniards 


56 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  JVb.  2, 


the  beauties  of  some  of  the  old  Castilian  legends  ; 
Hookham  Frere  guided  the  muse  of  the  Duque  de 
Rivas  to  El  moro  exposito,  and  Walter  Scott  in- 
spired Zorrilla.  Menendez  Pidal  devotes  the 
major  part  of  his  last  chapter  to  the  latter.  He 
presents  a  picture  both  critical  and  sympathetic  of 
the  little  genius,  lovable  and  conceited,  whose 
vivid  imagination  played  at  will  upon  medieval 
history  and  legend,  believing  or  discarding,  and 
in  case  of  need  inventing.  In  El  zapatero  y  el 
rey,  Sancho  Garcia,  El  punal  del  godo,  Zorrilla 
created  tradition  with  great  freedom.  In  Granada 
(1852)  he  employed  a  more  severe  historical 
method,  and  this  unfinished  epic,  inspired  by  the 
best  frontier  ballads,  was  his  last  masterpiece. 
The  Leyenda  del  Old,  written  thirty  years  later, 
is  a  verbose  paraphrase  of  all  the  Cid  ballads, 
without  discrimination. 

Blasco  Ibanez,  the  foremost  Spanish  novelist 
who  is  active  at  the  present  day,  paid  tribute  to 
a  medieval  epic  in  El  conde  Garci  Fernandez 
(1888).  Younger  literary  men,  stimulated  per- 
haps by  the  recent  publications  of  Menendez  y 
Pelayo  and  Menendez  Pidal  himself,  have  shown 
increasing  signs  of  turning  to  the  most  genuine 
old  sources  ;  witness  Marquina'  s  Las  hijas  del  Cid 
(1908),  a  play  based  upon  a  study  of  the  Mio  Cid 
itself. 

Thus,  says  Menendez  Pidal  in  conclusion,  the 
national  epic  tradition,  more  continuous  in  Spain 
than  in  any  other  country,  extends  down  to  the 
very  present.  Far  from  having  exhausted  its 
power,  it  is  able  to  direct  both  literature  and  life 
in  the  future,  if  by  profound  inquiry  into  the 
archeological  psychology  of  the  Middle  Ages  Span- 
iards will  discover  the  secrets  of  that  energetic 
race  from  which  they  are  descended. 

Those  who  know  Menendez  Pidal  only  by  his 
works  of  pure  erudition,  those  for  example  who 
have  never  read  his  address  upon  reception  into 
the  Spanish  Academy,  will  be  delighted  at  the 
power  of  generalization  and  depth  of  literary  in- 
sight displayed  in  this  volume.  It  is  the  true  test 
of  learning  to  be  able  to  grasp  a  vast  number  of 
scattered  facts,  order  them  wisely  and  lay  bare  the 
forces  that  gave  them  birth. 

One  should  not  leave  unnoticed  the  preface  by 
Ernest  Merimee,  part  of  which  is  devoted  to  the 
previous  publications  of  R.  Menendez  Pidal. 


Many  of  his  writings  have  been  scattered  in  out 
of  the  way  corners,  in  the  Homenaje  a  Menendez 
y  Pelayo  (1899),  in  another  Homenaje  to  Al- 
meida-Garrett  (Genoa,  1900),  in  still  another  to 
the  Arabist  Codera  y  Zaidiu  (1904),  and  else- 
where ;  and  it  is  a  relief  to  have  an  authoritative 
list  placed  before  one.  Finally,  the  book  con- 
tains a  very  complete  analytical  table  of  contents, 
and  an  index  of  proper  names  and  titles  in  both 
French  and  Spanish.  These  useful  compilations 
remove  the  work  from  the  category  of  a  collection 
of  detached  studies,  and  give  it  the  value  of  a 
reference-book. 

S.  GRISWOLD  MORLEY. 

University  of  Colorado. 


Grillparzers  Werke.  Im  Auftrage  der  Reichs- 
haupt-  und  Residenzstadt  Wien  herausgegeben 
von  AUGUST  SAUER.  Erster  Band.  Die  Ahn- 
frau.  Sappho. — Wien  und  Leipzig  :  Gerlach 
und  Wiedling,  1909. 

Der  lang  ersehnte  erste  Band  der  neuen,  kri- 
tischen  Grillparzer-Ausgabe  ist  endlich  erschienen 
und  gereicht  dem  Herausgeber  wie  der  Auftrag- 
geberin  zur  hochsten  Ehre.  Was  der  Einge- 
weihte  nicht  anders  erwartete,  ist  zur  Tat  gewor- 
den  :  ein  mustergiiltiges  Werk.  Wir  habeu  die 
Garantie,  dass  fur  Grillparzer  jetzt  dasselbe  ge- 
leistet  wird,  wie  fur  Goethe,  Schiller,  Lessing, 
Herder  und  neuerdings  Wieland.  Der  deutsche 
Klassiker  aus  Osterreich  kommt  zu  seinem  Recht. 
Endlich  wird  der  Welt  sein  gesamtes  Schaffen 
erschlossen,  dessen  voiles  Verstiindnis  ermoglicht. 
Jetzt  erst  beginnt  die  "  Wissenschaft "  von  Grill- 
parzer,— die  hoffentlich  die  Freudean  dem  Dich- 
ter  nicht  in  Klein  philologie  begrabt. 

Sauer  hat  in  seiner  umsichtigen  Weise  den 
Stoff  zweckmassig  in  zwei  getrennte  Abteilungen 
gegliedert,  mit  folgender  Anordnung  im  Einzel- 
nen  :  I)  die  Werke  der  reifen  Zeit  ;  die  Dramen, 
dramatischen  Fragmente,  Satiren  und  Uberset- 
zungen  ;  die  Gedichte  und  Epigramme  ;  die  Er- 
zahlungen,  Prosa-Satiren  und  Prosa-Aufsatze  ; 
die  zusammenhangenden  Studien  und  schliesslich 
die  iibrige  Masse  von  zerstreuten  Prosa-Aufzeich- 
nungen.  II)  die  Jugendwerke  ;  die  Tagebiicher 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


57 


imd  iihuliches  ;  Briefe  und  amtliche  Dokumente, 
Innerhalb  der  Gruppen  findet  chronologische  Ord- 
nuiig  statt. 

Dementsprechend  enthiilt  der  vorliegende  Band 
Die  Ahnfrau  (letzte  und  erste  Fassung)  und 
Sappho.  Vorausgeschickt  ist  eine  allgemeine 
Einfiihrung  mit  einer  meisterhaften,  hinreissend 
temperaraentvoll  geschriebenen  Charakteristik 
Grillparzers.  Daran  reihen  sich  besondere  Ein- 
leitungen  zu  den  beiden  Dramen.  Den  Schluss 
des  Bandes  bildet  ein  ausserst  wertvoller  Apparat 
von  Anmerkungen. 

Die  Einleitungen  behandeln  die  Entstehungs- 
geschichte  und  Quellenfrage  von  Ahnfrau  und 
Sappho  mit  jeiier  Klarheit,  Griiudlichkeit  und 
knappen  Vollstandigkeit,  die  wir  bei  Sauer  ge- 
wohnt  sind,  die  aber  immer  wieder  Bewunderung 
hervorruft.  Alle  bisherigen  Forschungen  sind 
herangezogen  und  uberholt.  Wo  noch  Unter- 
suchungen  einzusetzen  hatten,  werden  die  notigen 
Fingerzeige  gegeben.  Als  Beispiel  mag  bei  Gele- 
genheit  der  Ahnfrau  der  Hinweis  auf  E.  T.  A. 
Hoffmann  dienen  :  Elixiere  des  Teufels  <  Am- 
brosio,  or  The  Monk  von  M.  G.  Lewis  ;  die 
deutsche  Bearbeitung  dieses  Schauerromans  (Die 
blutende  Gestalt,  etc.),  dessen  Abhiingigkeit  wie- 
der von  deutschen  Quellen  (Musaus  u.  a.). 

Bei  Sappho  iiberrascht  der  Nachweis  von  Wie- 
lands  bestimmender  Einwirkung.  Man  beruhigte 
sich  gerne  bei  Grillparzers  Gestiindnis,  er  habe 
hier  mit  Goethes  Kalb  gepfliigt.  Nun  wird  es 
plotzlich  klar,  dass  vor  alien  andern  Wieland  es 
war,  der  Problem,  Motive  und  Farben  lieferte  : 
Agathon,  Aristipp,  dann  Menander  und  Glycerion 
usw.  Auch  Madame  de  Staels  Corinna  erscheint 
jetzt  definitiv  als  eine  der  Hauptquellen.  Das 
Verhaltnis  Corinna-Oswald-Lucile  entspricht  ge- 
nau  dem  Verhaltnis  Sappho-Phaon-Melitta.  Dazu 
kommt  noch  Goethe,  Schiller,  Zacharias  Werner 
und — Kotzebue.  Bei  so  mannigfacher,  so  starker 
Beeiuflussung  scheint  es  immer  undenkbarer,  dass 
das  Werk  zu  einem  innerlich  geschlosseneu  wer- 
den konnte.  Der  Dichter  selbst  hatte  bekanntlich 
das  Gefuhl,  dass  sich  ein  zweiter  Plan  in  den  ur- 
spriinglichen  hineingeschoben  habe.  Trotzdem 
glaubt  Sauer  mit  Emil  Reich  u.  a.  an  die  absolute 
Einheitlichkeit.  Grillparzer  soil  zu  pessimistisch 
gewesen  sein.  Hier  kann  ich  nicht  folgen.  Der 
Ausspruch  des  Kiinstlers  iiber  sein  Werk  beruht 


doch  wohl  auf  einem  unbeirrbaren  Instinkt.  Viel- 
leicht  klafft  der  grosse  Riss — es  gibt  noch  viele 
kleine — nicht  genau  an  der~von  Gr.  bezeichneten 
Stelle.  Mathematisch  ausrechnen  liisst  sich  so 
etwas  nicht.  Aber  Sauer  stimmt  mit  Gr.  darin 
uberein,  dass  anfangs  nur  das  W  e  i  b  ,  erst  gegen 
Schluss  die  Kunstlerin  Sappho  erscheine. 
Genu'gt  das  nicht,  jene  andere  Aussage  Grillpar- 
zers zu  stutzen  ?  Das  dramatisch-tragische  Pro- 
blem soil  sein  :  Kunst  und  Leben.  Die  Ver-  und 
Entwicklung  rein  menschlicher  Beziehungen  er- 
leben  wir  vier  Akte  lang  ;  und  der  fu'nfte  lasst 
nicht  sowohl  das  Weib,  das  die  Kraft  der  Ent- 
sagung  besitzt,  als  die  Kunstlerin,  die  sich  ent- 
weiht  glaubt,  scheitern,  eine  Sappho,  die  in  den 
ersten  Akten  zwar  dem  Namen,  aber  nicht  dem 
Wesen  nach,  existierte.  Ist  der  Fall  nicht  dem 
Don  Karlos  ahnlich  ?  Nun  ist  dieser  langsam 
und  ruckweise  entstanden,  die  Sappho  in  kurzen 
Wochen  niedergeschrieben  wordeu.  Das  beweist 
nichts  gegen  die  Moglichkeit  von  Spaltungen.  So 
ubervoll  von  literarischen  Anregungen,  und  ein- 
gestandenermassen  noch  nicht  im  sicheren  Besitz 
eines  eigenen  Stils,  kounte  der  Dichter  auch  in- 
nerhalb  einer  geringen  Spanne  Zeit  von  den  ver- 
schiedensten  Stimmungsimpulsen  getrieben  wer- 
den. Ja  musste  es,  da  er  nicht  so  u'ber  seinen 
Stoff  Herr  war,  wie  Goethe,  als  er  an  seinen 
Tasso  die  letzte  Hand  legte.  Soweit  eigene  Lebens- 
erfahrung  in  Sappho  enthalten  ist,  hat  Gr.  den 
Ausdruck  dafiir  nicht  aus  eigenen  Mitteln  bestrit- 
ten,  sondern  von  Vorbildern  erborgt.  Es  ist  im 
wesentlicheneinLiteraten-,kein  Lebenswerk.  Eine 
sehr  zu  wiinschende  Stiluntersuchung  wiirde  zei- 
gen,  wie  wenig  es  Grillparzer  gelungen  ist,  in 
seinem  Gedachtuis  die  vielen  einzelnen  Reminis- 
zenzen  und  deren  jeweiligen  Rhythmus  unlosbar 
mit  einander  zu  verschmelzen.  Freilich,  iiber  der 
Darstellung  bezaubernder  Kiinstlerinnen  vergisst 
sich  das.  Die  osterreichische  Kritik  steht  unter 
dem  Bann  soldier  Personalunionen,  die  aber  keine 
organische  Eiuheit  des  Werkes  selbst  bedeuten. 


University  of  Illinois. 


O.  E.  LESSING. 


58 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


Hdlfs  Saga  ok  Hdlfsrekka.  Herausgegeben  von 
A.  LEROY  ANDREWS.  Altnordische  Saga- 
bibliothek,  No.  14.  Halle,  1909. 

Notwithstanding  its  somewhat  meagre  and 
fragmentary  nature,  the  Hdlfssaga  is  an  attractive 
one,  by  reason  of  the  great  diversity  of  material 
it  offers  within  a  small  compass.  The  main  story 
itself  is  the  stereotype  Fornaldarsaga  ;  but  inter- 
woven, more  or  less  loosely,  are  a  number  of  int- 
eresting mythical  and  mythic-historic  episodes, 
such  as  the  promise  of  the  Unborn  Child  ;  an  off- 
shoot of  the  Polyphemos  story  ;  the  prophetic 
watersprite  ;  the  motive  of  the  Unfaithful  Wife  ; 
of  the  Supposititious  Child  ;  and  others.  Besides, 
an  unusual  amount  of  poetical  matter,  three  longer 
poems  and  a  number  of  lausavisur,  serve  to  divers- 
ify the  contents. 

The  saga  has  been  fortunate  in  its  editors. 
Following  the  editio  princeps  of  Rafn,  in  the 
Fornaldarsggur  NorKrlanda  (1829),  Bugge  furn- 
ished a  reliable  critical  text,  with  some  brilliant 
emendations,  in  the  first  fascicle  of  his  ' '  Norr0ne 
Skrifter  af  Sagnhistorisk  Indhold  "  ( 1864) .  Part- 
ial editions  were  brought  out  by  Ettmiiller  (Lii- 
ning),  Vigfusson  and  Powell,  and,  recently  (1903), 
by  Heusler  and  Ranisch  in  their  Eddica  Minora. 

The  aim  of  the  present  editor  is  to  make  the 
saga  more  generally  accessible  (by  furnishing  a 
detailed  commentary  and  notes,  conformable  to 
the  purpose  of  the  series),  and  by  a  comprehensive 
study  of  the  entire  material ]  to  trace  the  develop- 
ment and  later  history  of  the  Half  story.  Of  both 
tasks  he  has  acquitted  himself  admirably. 

For  reasons  with  which  we  are  bound  to  agree, 
Andrews  holds  that  originally  there  existed  a 
prose  Hdlfssaga  with  interspersed  lausavisur  ;  that 
it  became  rather  a  favorite,  furnishing  poets  the 
subjects  for  the  Insteinn,  Utsteinn,  and  Hrokr 
songs  ;  and  that  the  compilator  of  the  saga  as  we 
have  it  uncritically  incorporated  into  the  text  all 
later  embellishments,  even  when  overlapping  or 
conflicting.  For  one  thing,  the  songs  are  conclu- 
sively shown  not  to  be  the  source  of  the  prose,2 
excepting,  perhaps,  certain  portions  of  the  Inn- 

1  In  the  introduction  of  68  pages  which  is  also  obtain- 
able separately  as  a  Kiel  dissertation,  1908. 
1  As  Mogk  thought,  Odr.,  n,  p,  832. 


steinskvsefti.  At  the  same  time,  certain  diver- 
gences between  the  prose  and  the  songs  seem 
to  point  to  differing  original  versions  and  to  the 
likelihood  of  an  oral  existence  of  the  saga. 

There  is  considerable  difficulty  in  fixing  the 
date  of  composition.  Assuming  borrowing  into 
the  Landn£mab6k,  the  saga  was  composed  not 
later  than  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Heimskringla  (ca.  1220- 
1230)  may  have  been  drawn  upon.  But  this  evi- 
dence is  not  any  too  strong.  Andrews  does  not 
choose  to  make  use  of  the  argument  offered  in  the 
ages  of  12  and  13,  respectively,  being  given  ex- 
plicitly, both  in  the  prose  and  the  Hr6kskv8e$i, 
for  Half  and  Hjorolf,  when  starting  out  on  their 
Viking  careers.  But  if  Mogk  and  Finnur  J6ns- 
son  are  right  in  accepting  the  testimony  of  Hel- 
gakviSa  Hundingsbana  I  v.  10,  as  furnishing  cor- 
roborative evidence  that  this  poem  was  not  com- 
posed before  the  eleventh  century  (when  the 
coming  of  age  had  been  postponed,  both  in  Nor- 
way and  Iceland,  to  the  fifteenth  year),8  we  are 
justified  in  thinking,  conversely,  of  the  original 
version  of  our  saga  as  existing  a  considerable  time 
before  its  being  committed  to  writing.  Unless, 
indeed,  we  assume  that  both  poet  and  sagawriter 
knew  and  consciously  employed  a  knowledge  of 
this  fact  in  order  to  produce  the  semblance  of 
antiquity.  This  doubt  must  not  be  suppressed, 
seeing  that  the  HrokskvseSi  shows  Romantic  in- 
fluence and  in  v.  63  a  knowledge,  perhaps,  of 
the  youngest  of  the  Eddie  poems.* 

In  connection  with  the  argument  above  pre- 
ferred I  would  urge  that  the  older  version  of  the 
saga  seems,  after  all,  more  Norwegian  tban  Ice- 
landic. The  mention  of  a  hnotskog,5  of  an  oak,* 
of  hunting  on  the  Hardangervidde,  and  the  ac- 
curate and  intimate  knowledge  shown  of  S.  W. 
Norway  and  its  local  points  of  interest  and  lore, 
especially  as  compared  with  the  vagueness  of  geo- 

SK.  Maurer,  ZfdPhil.,  u,  443. 

*Gripisspd,  v.  43,  1.  4. 

6Cf.  the  lovely  hazelnut-groves  of  the  Hardanger.  A. 
fails  to  point  out  the  significance  of  Hrok's  wooing  in  the 
nut-shaw,  a  locality  supposed  to  be  especially  favorable  to 
secret  love.  Cf.  Folklore  Record,  i,  155.  Cf.  also  Egils- 
saga  ok  Asmundar  (Fas.  in,  365),  where  the  same  phrase 
alluded  to  occurs,  and  a  maiden  of  the  same  name  (Bryn- 
hildr)  is  abducted. 

6  Though  eik  may  also  mean  simply  '  tree.' 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


59 


graphical  information  on  other  parts — all  this 
seems  to  argue  that  the  kernel  of  the  story  at 
least  is  Norwegian. 

The  second  part  of  the  introduction  concerns 
itself  with  the  provenience  of  the  later  evidences 
of  the  Halfstory  in  Swedish,  Danish,  and  Faroese 
ballads. 

In  the  following  a  few  notes  on  some  minor 
points  where  I  disagree  with  the  editor. 

Geirhildr  Drifsdottir  (chap.  1).  To  be  sure,  a 
man's  name  Drifr  occurs  nowhere  else7;  but  in 
'  Hversu  Noregr  byggftiz  ' 8  we  are  told  that  born 
Snies  konungs  voru  ]>au  porri  (his  son)  ok  Fonn, 
Drifa  ok  Mjgll  (his  daughters).  Since  OSinn 
himself  condescends  to  woo  Geirhild 9  it  lies  near 
to  assume  Drifr  to  be  simply  a  transference  of  the 
naive  person ification  contained  in  the  name  of 
Drifa  (=  '  snow-squall ' ),  made  with  the  manifest 
kind  intention  to  assign  the  maiden  to  an  ancient 
and  respectable,  yet  not  too  well-known,  family.10 
Significantly,  it  is  not  said  where  Geirhildr  Drifs- 
dottir hails  from — we  presume,  from  Jotunheim, 
whither  Odinn  resorted  not  infrequently  on 
amorous  adventure  bound. 

V.  10.  Dregr  mik  engi  /  i  degi  sidan  //  mafir 
upp  i  skib  I  af  mararbotnum — does  not,  of  course, 
mean  '  niemand  soil  mich  wieder  bei  tage  herauf- 
ziehen  ' ;  but  rather,  '  no  one  shall  ( N.  B.  rather 
'will')11  ever,  etc.'  See  Egilsson 12  sub  dagr  ; 
also  Fritzner  sub  dagr  2.  Andrews  no  doubt  had 
in  mind  the  German  '  zu  tage  fordern  ' ;  but  this 
usage  is  foreign  to  Icelandic. 

That  Andrews  should  base  his  text  on  Bugge's 
edition  is  a  procedure  entirely  justifiable  ;  but  it 
would  not  have  been  amiss  to  print  all  the  more 
important  deviations  from  the  MS.,  for  the  sake  of 
control  by  those  to  whom  Bugge's  work  is  not 


7Cf.  Bugge,  loc.  cit.,  p.  3,  note. 

8  Fas.  n,  3.     The  name  occurs  also  in  the  Anssaga  bogs- 
veigis,  Fas.,  n,  340. 

9  For  her  name  cf.  that  of  the  Valkyrja  Geirskogull. 

10  Her  earthly  suitor,  Alrekr,  is  fabled  to  be  ultimately 
of  the  same  race,  Fas.  n,  5. 

11  The  marmennil  had  enough  of  one  experience,  and  is 
resolved  that  no  one  is  ever  going  to  draw  him  out  again. 

14  Lex.  Poet.  Sept.  I  note  that  M.  Moe  makes  the  same 
mistake  in  his  (free)  rendition  of  the  verse,  on  p.  628  of 
Finncrne  i  gamle  historiske  sagn  (in  A.  Holland's  Seskri- 
velse  over  Finmarkens  Ami,  vol.  n). 


accessible.     The  advisability  of  this  will  come  out 
in  the  following  instance. 

V.  43  (Utsteinskvsefci)  :  — eigi  var  /  6rum  br6- 
ftur  //  vi?5  dritmenni  jritt  /  dramb  at  setja.  /ritt  was 
emended  by  Bugge  to  read  tttt,  and  simply  omitted 
by  Heusler-Ranisch  (followed  by  A.,  but  without 
any  note  whatsoever)  as  "  metrisch  iiberladend." 
A.  translates  :  ' '  nicht  aber  war  es  meines  bruders 
art,  sich  in  prahlerei  mit  scheisskerlen  zu  mes- 
sen";  but  there  is  no  authority  for  rendering 
setja  (eht  vifi  ernn)  by  "sich  messen  mit." 
Rather,  setja  (with  ace.  of  thing)  has  the  mean- 
ing of  "  to  put  down,  settle,  allay."  1S 

In  the  Swipdagsfattr  of  the  Hrolfssaga  Kraka 
there  is  a  situation  unmistakably  similar  to  the 
one  in  question.  Now  in  the  course  of  the  chal- 
lenges the  utterance  is  made  :  ' '  ek  skal  setja  ]rik 
ok  semja  dramb  fiitt,"  M  "  I  shall  put  you  down 
and  settle  your  arrogance. ' ' 15  This  clinches  the 
meaning  of  setja  in  our  passage. — Again,  setja 
(with  ace.  of  object)  is  almost  invariably  asso- 
ciated with  the  adverb  nfiSr.  This  suggests  a  read- 
ing dritmenni :  eth.  dat.  nHSrj,  omitting  vift,  which 
may  have  crept  in  from  vift  ragmenni,  vift  Ulfs  sonu. 
a  few  lines  above  and  below.  For,  notwithstanding 
Bugge's  note,16  on  the  use  of  viS  in  this  passage, 
it  is  harsh,  just  because  of  the  slightly  different 
use  in  the  two  other  cases.  The  use  of  the  second 
person  of  the  possessive  pronoun  in  vocative,  and 
especially  vituperative,  expressions  of  this  nature 
was,  possibly,  all  too  familiar  a  phenomenon  to 
the  copyist  of  the  vellum  to  be  resisted.  So  he 
simply  substituted  fiitt  for  niftr. 

V.  25.  The  name  Vifill  occurs  oftener  than 
the  note  of  Heusler  and  Ranisch "  (unquestion- 
ingly  referred  to  by  A. )  indicates.  Their  query 
' '  wurde  der  name  in  Island  zunachst  als  sklaven- 
name  verwendet,  und  haftete  ihm  etwas  gering- 
schatziges  an  "  ?  is  answered  by  the  occurrence  of 
Vifill  konungr  (in  Hversu  Noregr  byggdiz)  w 

13  See  Fritzner  sub  setja.  7. 

14  Fas.  i,  38.     This  is    all  the  more  noteworthy  since 
A.  recognized  another  point  of  contact  with  this  saga, 
Ed.,  p.  29. 

16  Cf.  also  pffirekssaga,  chap.  68  :  Nti  maelti  margr  niaftr 
&  >essa  lund,  at  J>ar  sem  ma^r  setr  dramb  sit  h&st,  at  J«t 
kann  Ijegst  at  leggiaz. 

16L.  c.,  p.  44.  "Edd.  Mn.,  xxxiv. 

18  Flateyarbok,  I,  24. 


60 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


and  ofVifill  j'arJ  (in  the  porsteinssaga  Vikings- 
sonar).19  We  find  the  name  already  on  the  Pil- 
gardstone  in  Gothland,  and  in  the  collocation 
' '  Vifil  bau8  um. ' '  20  And  some  noble  Vifell  occurs 
in  the  Hestaheiti  (Skaldskm.  ch.  58). 

I  cannot  forbear,  in  conclusion,  to  mention  An- 
dress'  highly  interesting  explanation  21  of  the  hith- 
erto obscure  'SvarSar  dottir'  as  S(ig)vart>ar  dottir, 
which  seems  very  plausible  indeed.  Together 
with  the  tentative  assignation  of  vs.  8-10  to 
Einarr  Helgason  skalaglam,  it  is  one  of  the  best 
things  in  the  book.22 

L.  M.  HOLLANDER. 

University  of  Wisconsin, 


Common  Difficulties  in  Reading  French,  by 
CHARLES  C.  CLARKE,  JR.  New  York :  Wil- 
liam R.  Jenkins  Co.  [1910]. 

Professor  Clarke  has  made  a  successful  attempt 
to  collect  in  a  small  volume  the  words  and  phrases 
which  trouble  students  most  frequently,  and  by 
omitting  all  but  difficult  questions  has  been  able  to 
discuss  these  at  length.  At  times  his  discussions 
are  even  longer  than  is  necessary.  Frequently 
statements  occur  which  are  superfluous,  if  they  are 
warnings,  and  unsatisfactory,  if  they  are  explana- 
tions :  "Do  not  confuse  these  words" — "Note 
the  two  words"  — ".  .  .  is  a  word  often  mis- 
understood " — "  .  .  .  does  not  mean  just  what  it 
seems  to" — etc. 

On  the  other  hand,  omissions  are  numerous. 
P.  3,  in  discussing  the  uses  of  accroire,  he  omits 
the  idiom  s'  en  faire  accroire,  '  presume  too  much. ' 
— P.  13  he  neglects  to  mention  that  avoir  fre- 
quently means  'to  secure.1 — P.  14  he  should 
have  warned  us  that  it  is  only  when  avoir  beau 
is  followed  by  an  infinitive  that  it  means  '  to  do  in 
vain,'  Vous  I'avez  beau  means  'you  have  a  fine 
opportunity.' — P.  27,  a  long  list  of  idiomatic 
phrases  with  coup  fails  to  include  the  very  common 
coup  d'etat. — P.  138  :  "Notice  that  it  is  very  com- 
mon for  the  conclusion  of  a  conditional  sentence 
to  appear  with  merely  an  implied  condition  or  a 
complete  ellipsis  of  it."  Is  it  not  exactly  as  use- 
ful to  know  that  the  conditional  part  may  some- 
times appear  without  the  conclusion  ? 

As  to  his  choice  of  words  and  phrases  for  dis- 
cussion, there  is  little  but  praise  to  be  said.  A 

19 Fas.  n,  384.    Cf.  also  Vifills  borg,  Eagnarss.  L.,  Fas. 

20  Trans,  by  Bugge,  Norges  Indskrifter  med  de  yngre 
Runer,  p.  18:  '  Dette  Ombud  (eller  Opdrag)  gav.  V.' 

"Ed.,  p.  15 f. 

22  Cf.  now  also  Neckel,  Beitrage  zur  Eddaforschung, 
1908,  pp.  98  f.,  on  the  interpretation  of  v.  21. 


test  of  the  book  reveals  only  a  small  number  of 
common  mistakes  that  are  not  treated.  He  has 
forgotten  to  distinguish  matin  from  matin  ;  mepris 
from  meprise  ;  pecher  from  pfoher,  but  even  such 
omissions  are  rare. 

There  are  a  number  of  errors.  I  omit  the  most 
of  those  that  are  purely  typographical :  P,  5, 
under  Affaire.  The  running  of  two  paragraphs 
into  one  leaves  the  reader  in  confusion  till  he 
discovers  the  error. — P.  31.  "De  is  placed,  in  an 
expletive  way,  before  certain  classes  of  words, 
where  in  English  there  is  no  chance  to  render  it 
at  all."  And  as  one  illustration  of  this  use  : 
"  Votre  polisson  de  frere  (your  rascal  of  a 
brother)." — P.  38.  "  Durant  is  often  equivalent 
to  Pendant,  'while'  or  'during'  (see Pendant)." 
But  pendant  does  not  appear  at  all. — P.  77. 
"After  que  and  si,  I'  usually  appears  before  on  to 
prevent  a  hiatus"  But  if  on  followed  que  there 
would  be  no  hiatus  in  any  case. — P,  91,  ''Re- 
darner  had  better  not  be  translated  '  reclaim, '  but 
'to  find  fault,'  to  'protest,'"  Is  it  not  true, 
rather,  that  reclamer  is  sometimes  '  reclaim, '  and 
at  other  times  '  find  fault '  or  '  protest '  ? — P, 
95,  ' '  Savoir  is  one  of  four  verbs  that  can  be 
rendered  negative  by  ne  alone."  There  are  more 
than  four  such  verbs. — P.  124.  "Selon  lui  cortege 
aurait  suivi,"  etc.,  apparently  for  "Selon  lui  le 
cortege,"  etc. — P,  124,  The  paragraph  marked 
N,  B.  is  evidently  misplaced. 

The  useful  part  of  the  book  is  the  alphabetical 
list  of  words  and  phrases  which  forms  Part  I. 
Part  II,  "Notes  on  Syntax,"  is  in  no  wise 
different  from  the  ordinary  grammar,  and  Part 
III  is  a  succinct  reference  table  of  irregular  verbs. 


R.  T.  HOUSE. 


Weaiherford,  Okla. 


Sheridan,  From  New  and  Original  Material ;  In- 
cluding a  Manuscript  Diary  of  Georgiana, 
Duchess  of  Devonshire.  By  WALTER  SICHEL. 
In  two  volumes.  Illustrated.  Houghtou,  Mif- 
flin  Company,  1909.  8vo.,  pp.  xix  +  631  ; 
xi  -f  549. 

Heretofore  two  other  men  have  dealt  with 
Sheridan's  life  at  first  hand,  Thomas  Moore  and 
Fraser  Rae.  Moore's  Life  has  always  been  re- 
garded as  inadequate  and  unjust.  Rae's  Biog- 
raphy, in  its  statement  of  facts,  is  excellent  ;  yet 
most  readers,  I  believe,  have  felt  repelled  by  the 
hero-worship  which  so  highly  colors  its  estimates 
of  Sheridan's  personality  and  achievements.  Mr. 
Sichel  justly  censures  Rae  as  follows  :  "Least  of 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


61 


all  was  he  [Sheridan]  the  rose-water  liberal  and 
high-souled  enthusiast  of  his  last  biographer,  Mr. 
Eae,  who  has  scrubbed  him  with  Sunday  soap  till 
he  shines  like  one  of  Wilkie's  peasants."  Cer- 
tainly a  juster  estimate  and  a  fuller  life  of  Sheri- 
dan is  welcome. 

In  his  Preface  Mr.  Sichel  states  his  two-fold 
purpose  :  (1)  to  portray  Sheridan  for  the  first  time 
at  "full-length,"  and  (2)  to  present  with  this  por- 
trait an  adequate  background  of  the  period.  To 
accomplish  these  ends  he  has  attempted  to  examine 
all  the  original  manuscript  authorities,  and  all 
books  and  pamphlets  of  any  importance  that  bear 
on  the  subject.  He  has,  it  seems,  left  no  stone 
unturned  ;  and  whatever  may  be  the  shortcom- 
ings of  his  book,  one  cannot  charge  him  with  a 
lack  of  industry.  Indeed  his  labor,  extended 
over  years,  seems  to  have  been  largely  one  of 
love.  A  glance  at  the  numerous  illustrations 
beneath  which  appear  the  significant  words  "in 
the  possession  of  the  author, ' '  shows  how  deeply 
absorbed  he  became  in  his  task. 

Sheridan  achieved  fame  in  two  separate  careers, 
first  in  literature,  later  in  politics.  Accordingly, 
Mr.  Sichel  has  devoted  Volume  One  to  Sheridan's 
literary,  and  Volume  Two  to  his  political  career. 
But  before  beginning  the  narrative  he  gives  us 
what  he  terms  an  "Overture,"  dealing  at  great 
length  (180  pages)  with  "  The  Man  "  and  "The 
Moment."  In  this  prefatory  essay  he  attempts 
"to  put  the  man  and  his  environment  into  dis- 
tinct categories  ...  to  psychologise  a  tempera- 
ment and  a  time."  The  most  interesting  feature 
of  his  discussion  of  ' '  The  Man ' '  is  his  effort  to 
show  that  the  secret  springs  of  Sheridan's  life 
were  primarily  sentimentalism  and  melancholia. 
"In  the  rough,  then,  Sheridan  offers  a  study 
in  sentiment.  Round  this  he  revolves,  and  it 
explains  much  in  him  that  would  otherwise  re- 
main a  riddle.  It  is  his  central  aspect,  and 
all  other  clues  to  his  nature  radiate  from  it." 
Yet,  accompanying  this  sentimentalism,  as  a 
kind  of  complement,  was  a  strain  of  melancholia  : 
' '  He  was  also  what  Heine  has  termed  another, 
'the  knight  of  the  laughing  tear.'  A  constitu- 
tional melancholy  neighboured  his  mirth,  the 
irony  of  things  underlay  his  gayest  outbursts, 
and  his  mind,  like  that  of  his  frolicsome  forerun- 
ner, the  comic  Farquhar,  was  frequently  'dressed 
in  black.'  " 

After  this  "  Overture,"  given  first  that  it  may 
not  "impede  the  narrative,"  Mr.  Sichel  proceeds 
to  Sheridan's  life.  Working  in  the  field  almost 
immediately  after  Rae,  and  handling  practically 
the  same  material,  he  has  been  able  to  check  the 
statements  of  the  former  ;  hence  his  work  has  a 
certain  authoritativeness  that  otherwise  it  would 
not  have  had.  At  the  outset  he  takes  issue  with 
Rae  as  to  the  time  of  Sheridan's  birth.  This  Rae 
had  assigned,  without  warrant,  it  seems,  to  Octo- 


ber 30  ;  Mr.  Sichel  declares  :  ' '  The  precise  day, 
and  indeed  month  of  Sheridan's  birth  is  unascer- 
tained." 1  In  many  similar  cases  of  detail  he 
has  been  able  to  correct  his  predecessors,  and 
frequently  to  settle  matters  hitherto  in  doubt. 
These  are  too  numerous  for  mention  here.  Not 
the  least  interesting,  however,  are  those  in  con- 
nection with  Sheridan's  duels.  For  example,  it 
is  shown  that  the  famous  letter  purported  to 
have  been  written  by  Miss  Linley,  and  long  dis- 
credited as  a  clumsy  forgery,  was  in  all  proba- 
bility a  transcript  from  a  genuine  letter. 

In  addition  to  chronicling  biographical  facts, 
Mr.  Sichel  has  quoted  lavishly  from  Sheridan's 
various  poems  and  essays,  most  of  which  he  re- 
produces for  the  first  time.  Thus  he  has  fulfilled 
his  promise  in  the  Preface  ' '  to  cull  a  Sheridan 
anthology."  As  such  his  work  has  a  unique 
value.  Here,  better  than  anywhere  else,  one  may 
form  an  idea  of  Sheridan's  ability  as  a  lyric  poet. 

In  Volume  One,  also,  Mr.  Sichel  discusses  at 
great  length  each  of  Sheridan' s  plays.  The  chap- 
ter on  The  School  for  Scandal  is  especially  full, 
and  valuable  for  its  handling  of  the  successive 
stages  through  which  that  comedy  passed.  For 
the  purposes  of  this  review,  however,  I  shall  con- 
fine myself  to  the  discussion  of  The  Rivals.  This, 
I  find,  is  not  without  errors.  The  third  sentence 
contains  the  statement :  "  After  two  performances 
it  was  withdrawn" — a  venerable  mistake,  for 
which  no  excuse  can  be  given.  The  play  was 
withdrawn  after  one  performance.  On  page  500 
the  same  error  is  made  with  further  complications  : 
"  On  the  second  night,  however,  the  part  [of  Sir 
Lucius]  was  transferred  with  less  odium  [from 
LeeJ.  to  Clinch,  and  Sheridan,  who  in  despair 
had  thought  of  throwing  the  piece  overboard,  was 
induced  by  Harris,  the  manager,  to  withdraw  it 
for  revision."  Clinch  did  not  assume  the  role  of 
Sir  Lucius  until  the  revised  play  was  put  on  the 
boards  ten  nights  after  the  first  performance.  On 
page  486  Mr.  Sichel  represents  the  Prologue  as 
' '  pointing  to  the  mask  of  Thalia  on  the  prosce- 
nium." Yet, Sheridan  clearly  says:  "Pointing 
to  the  figure  of  Comedy ' ' ;  and  there  was  on 
either  side  of  the  stage,  near  the  proscenium,  a 
statue,  one  of  Comedy,  the  other  of  Tragedy. 
These  statues  are  shown  quite  clearly  in  a  picture 
of  the  stage  of  the  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  repro- 
duced in  George  Paston's  Social  Caricatures  in 
the  Eighteenth  Century.  On  page  489  Mr.  Sichel 
quotes  a  passage  from  Congreve  as  having  sug- 
gested Bob  Acres' s  oaths,  with  the  remark  :  "A 
rather  suspicious  coincidence  which  the  plagiary- 
hunters  have  missed. ' '  Professor  Nettleton  in  his 
edition  of  The  Eivals  (The  Major  Dramas  of 


1  Nevertheless,  Mr.  Sichel  begins  his  chapter  (p.  235) 
dogmatically  :  "  Kichard  Brinsley  Butler  Sheridan  was 
born  .  ,  .  towards  the  close  of  September,  1751." 


62 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Fb/.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


Sheridan*),  pointed  out  this  fact  in  1906.  Finally, 
Mr.  Sichel  underestimates  Mrs.  Malaprop's  in- 
debtedness to  Mrs.  Tryfort  in  A  Journey  to  Bath.1 
He  admits  only  three  verbal  borrowings  ( ' '  Thirdly 
and  this  exhausts  the  list ").  The  present  writer 
has  counted  no  less  than  nine  such  borrowings. 
On  page  299  is  revealed,  in  a  speech  of  Sir  An- 
thony, an  interesting  reminiscence  from  Sheridan 
and  Halhed's  unpublished  comedy  Ixion.  Even 
more  interesting,  however,  is  the  identification  of 
autobiographical  influences  in  the  play.  From 
the  day  The  Rivals  was  first  presented  writers 
have  suggested  that  Lydia  Languish  and  Captain 
Absolute  represented  in  some  measure  Miss  Lin- 
ley  and  Sheridan.  Mr.  Sichel,  however,  thinks 
otherwise  :  ' '  Faulkland  and  Julia  .  .  .  are  true 
transcripts  from  himself  and  Miss  Linley.  Nothing 
can  be  more  certain."  This  is  ingenious,  yet 
critics  of  the  play  will  not  accept  so  bold  a  state- 
ment without  hesitation. 

Volume  Two  deals  entirely  with  Sheridan's 
political  life,  with  which,  of  course,  the  student 
of  literature  is  less  concerned.  It  is  conspicuous 
for  three  things  :  the  interesting  and  valuable 
Diary  of  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire,  printed  for 
the  first  time  ;  generous  excerpts  from  Sheridan's 
famous  Begum  speech,  hitherto  regarded  as  lost ; 
and  conclusive  evidence  that  the  remarkable  state 
document,  the  Prince  of  "Wales' s  Letter  to  Mr. 
Pitt,  was  written,  not  by  Burke,  as  commonly 
believed,  but  by  Sheridan. 

In  an  Appendix  is  given  a  "Bibliography  of 
Sheridan's  Works,  Published  and  Unpublished." 
This  is  far  more  exhaustive  than  any  previous 
bibliography,  yet  is  by  no  means  complete.  It 
even  fails  to  record  the  most  scholarly  edition, 
Professor  Nettleton's  The  Major  Dramas  of  Sheri- 
dan, 1906.  The  Index  is  hard  to  use,  and  is  full 
of  errors,  both  of  omission  and  commission. 

Of  the  press-work  too  much  can  hardly  be  said 
in  praise.  The  paper  is  of  superior  quality,  the 
type  is  large  and  clear,  and  the  binding,  in  red 
cloth  with  the  arms  of  the  Sheridan  family  on  the 
sides,  is  tasteful  and  pleasing.  Most  noteworthy, 
however,  is  the  richness  of  illustration.  There 
are  forty-seven  full-page  prints  in  brown,  many 
of  them  now  published  for  the  first  time,  and 
together  forming  an  invaluable  collection  of  pic- 
torial matter.  In  addition,  there  are  three  fold- 
ing sheets  of  pedigrees.  The  publishers,  in  short, 
have  done  for  the  book  all  that  could  be  desired. 


JOSEPH  QUINCY  ADAMS,  JR. 


Cornell  University. 


2  On  page  251  Sichel  observes  :  ' '  She  [Mrs.  Thomas 
Sheridan]  left  two  acts  of  an  unfinished  comedy,  '  A 
Journey  to  Bath.'"  This  should  read  "three  acts." 
The  reference  is  omitted  from  the  Index. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
WILLIAM  LILLY  AND  The  Alchemist. 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — The  two  following  passages  from  Wil- 
liam Lilly*  s  History  of  his  Life  and  Times  are  of 
interest  as  illustrating  first,  the  general  situation 
of  Jouson's  Alchemist,  a  house  left  in  charge  of  a 
servant  during  the  prevalence  of  the  plague,  and 
secondly,  the  ridiculous  scene  (Act  in,  Scene  5) 
in  which  poor  Dapper  is  introduced  to  the  Queen 
of  Faery.  Lilly,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  a 
notable  astrologer  of  his  day,  half  charlatan  and 
half  the  dupe  of  his  own  occult  learning.  His 
Life  in  its  mixture  of  candor  and  craft,  its  real- 
istic anecdote  and  credulous  half  belief,  is  one  of 
the  most  entertaining  relics  of  its  time.  The  nar- 
rative, which  is  of  course  desultory  in  the  extreme, 
extends  from  the  year  1602  to  1681,  having  been 
written  by  Lilly  in  the  sixty-sixth  year  of  his  age 
and  addressed  ' '  to  his  worthy  friend  Elias  Ash- 
mole,  Esq. , "  to  whom  we  owe  so  much  in  the  way 
of  the  preservation  of  manuscripts  dealing  with 
the  occult.  Lilly's  manuscript  was  first  published 
in  the  year  1715  by  Charles  Burman.  It  was  re- 
printed in  1774  with  the  life  of  Ashmole,  and 
again  in  1822. 

The  situation  in  this  first  passage,  it  will  be 
noticed,  is  precisely  that  of  Lovewit  and  his  ser- 
vant Face,  left  in  charge,  even  to  the  Master's 
marriage  soon  after.  It  is  not  even  impossible  to 
imagine  Lovewit  as  dying,  and  Dame  Pliant 
taking  the  clever  servant  for  a  third  husband  as 
here.  But  this  is  romancing,  and  in  point  of 
time  the  fiction  preceded  the  fact. 

"In  1625,  the  visitation  increasing,  and  my 
master  having  a  great  charge  of  money  and  plate, 
some  of  his  own,  some  other  men's,  left  me  and  a 
fellow-servant  to  keep  the  house,  and  himself  in 
June  went  into  Leicestershire.  He  was  in  that 
year  of  fee  collector  for  twelve  poor  alms  people 
living  in  Clement  Dane's  churchyard  ;  whose 
pensions  I  in  his  absence  paid  weekly,  to  his  and 
the  parish's  great  satisfaction.  My  master  was 
no  sooner  gone  down,  but  I  bought  a  bas-viol, 
and  got  a  master  to  instruct  me  ;  the  intervals  of 
time  I  spent  in  bowling  in  Lincoln' s-Inn-Fields, 
with  Wat  the  cobbler,  Dick  the  blacksmith,  and 
such  like  companions.  We  have  sometimes  been 
at  our  work  at  six  in  the  morning,  and  so  con- 
tinued till  three  or  four  in  the  afternoon,  many 
times  without  bread  or  drink  all  that  while.  .  .  . 
In  November  my  master  came  home.  My  fellow- 
servant's  and  my  diet  came  weekly  to  six  shillings 
and  sixpence,  sometimes  to  seven  shillings,  so 
cheap  was  diet  at  that  time. 


February,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


63 


"  In  February  of  that  year  my  master  married 
again  (one  who  after  his  death  became  my  wife). 
In  the  same  year  he  settled  upon  me,  during  my 
life,  twenty  pounds  per  annum,  which  I  have  en- 
joyed ever  since,  even  to  the  writing  hereof. ' ' 

As  to  the  second  extract,  it  will  be  recalled  by 
readers  of  Jonson  that  Dapper  has  been  promised 
by  the  alchemist,  Subtle,  and  his  "fence,"  Face, 
a  sight  of  ' '  her  grace  "  his  "  aunt, ' '  queen  of  the 
fairies,  who  is  to  make  him  her  heir  and  perform 
for  him  other  wonders.  His  eyes  are  bound  ' '  with 
a  rag,"  and  he  is  pinched  to  the  music  of  a  cit- 
tern, until  he  throws  away  all  his  valuables  to  the 
last  half-crown  of  gold 

c<  about  my  wrist,  that  my  love  gave  me 
And  a  leaden  heart  I  wore  sin'  she  forsook  me." 

Surprised  in  the  midst  of  these  incantations,  a  gag 
of  gingerbread  is  thrust  into  his  mouth  and  he  is 
locked  away  in  an  unmentionable  place. 

Lilly's  passage  represents  the  serious  belief  of 
the  day  on  which  Jonson' s  farcical  scene  is 
founded. 

' '  Since  I  have  related  of  the  queen  of  fairies,  I 
shall  acquaint  you,  that  it  is  not  for  every  one,  or 
every  person,  that  these  angelical  creatures  will 
appear  unto,  though  they  may  say  over  the  call, 
over  and  over,  or  indeed  is  it  given  to  very  many 
persons  to  endure  their  glorious  aspects  ;  even  very 
many  have  failed  just  at  that  present  when  they 
are  ready  to  manifest  themselves  ;  even  persons 
otherwise  of  undaunted  spirits  and  firm  resolu- 
tions, are  herewith  astonished,  and  tremble  ;  as  it 
happened  not  many  years  since  with  us.  A  very 
sober  discreet  person,  of  virtuous  life  and  conver- 
sation, was  beyond  measure  desirous  to  see  some- 
thing in  this  nature.  He  went  with  a  friend  into 
my  Hurstwood  ;  the  queen  of  fairies  was  invo- 
cated  ;  a  gentle  murmuring  wind  came  first  ;  after 
that,  among  the  hedges,  a  smart  whirlwind  ;  by 
and  by  a  strong  blast  of  wind  blew  upon  the  face 
of  the  friend  ;  and  the  queen  appearing  in  a  most 
illustrious  glory,  '  No  more,  I  beseech  you, '  quoth 
the  friend  :  '  My  heart  fails  ;  I  am  not  able  to 
endure  longer.'  Nor  was  he  :  his  black  curling 
hair  rose  up,  and  I  believe  a  bullrush  would  have 
beat  him  to  the  ground. 

"Sir  Robert  Holborn,  knight,  brought  once 
unto  me  Gladwell  of  Suffolk,  who  had  formerly 
had  sight  and  conference  with  Uriel  and  Raphael, 
but  lost  both  by  carelessness  ;  so  that  neither  of 
them  both  would  but  rarely  appear,  and  then 
presently  be  gone,  resolving  nothing.  He  would 
have  given  me  two  hundred  pounds  to  have  as- 
sisted him  for  their  recovery,  but  I  am  no  such 
man.  Those  glorious  creatures,  if  well  com- 
manded, and  well  observed,  do  teach  the  master 


any  thing  he  desires  ;  amant  secreta,  fugiunt 
aperta.  The  fairies  love  the  southern  side  of 
hills,  mountains,  groves.  Neatness  and  cleanli- 
ness in  apparel,  a  strict  diet,  and  upright  life, 
fervent  prayers  unto  God,  conduce  much  to  the 
assistance  of  those  who  are  curious  in  these  ways. ' ' 

Apropos  of  this  last  compare  The  Alchemist, 
Act  i,  Scene  ii : 

Subtle. 

O,  good  sir  ! 

There  must  a  world  of  ceremonies  pass, 
You  must  be  bathed  and  fumigated,  first. 

Sir,  against  one  a  clock,  prepare  yourself, 
Till  when  you  must  be  fasting  ; 

And,  put  on  a  clean  shirt :  you  do  not  know 
What  grace  her  grace  may  do  you  in  clean  linen. 


F.    E.    SCHELLING. 


University  of  Pennsylvania. 


INCLITE  ARTI  A  RADDOLCIR  LA  VITA. 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — In  a  passage  of  Carducci's  Alle  fonti 
del  Clitumno,  which  is  largely  inspired  by  Ver- 
gil's "Praises  of  Italy,"  it  occurs  to  me  that 
there  exists  an  allusion,  and  that  the  understand- 
ing of  the  allusion  is  necessary  to  a  grasp  of  the 
"  psychological  moment"  that  produced  the  lines. 
It  is  the  final  invocation  to  Italy  : 

"E  tu,  pia  madre  di  giovenchi  invitti 
A  franger  glebe  e  rintegrar  maggesi 
E  d'annitrenti  in  guerra  aspri  polledri 
Italia  madre, 

Madre  di  biade  e  viti  e  leggi  eterne 
Ed  indite  arti  a  raddolcir  la  vita, 
Salve  I  a  te  i  canti  de  1'antica  lode 
lo  rinnovello.  ..." 

The  italicized  line  is  a  relic  of  Carducci's  enor- 
mous erudition,  an  erudition  which  he  utilized  in 
all  his  poems,  and  which  he  acknowledged  where 
possible  within  his  verses,1  or,  in  the  most  impor- 
tant cases,  in  special  commenting  notes.  It  is 
this  erudition  that  gives  him  the  very  high  rank 
he  holds  among  Italian  epic  poets.  For  the  epic 
of  art,  in  the  narrow  sense  of  the  term,  must  be 
at  bottom  a  work  of  erudition.  It  will  be  a  great 
epic  or  a  failure  according  as  the  erudition  is 
artistically  interpreted.  The  works  of  Trissino 
and  his  followers  are  note-books  of  history  dis- 

1  Of.  the  splendid  citation  from  Goethe  at  the  end  of 
7a  ira. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2. 


torted  by  "imagination";  Carducci's  history  is 
interpreted  in  general  summaries  fused  by  lyric 
power.  He  must  have  been  conscious  of  this 
distinction  himself  as  he  composed  his  lines  on 
Hannibal  and  thought  of  Petrarch's  futile  at- 
tempt to  force  poetry  into  those  same  events. 
But  if  the  ode  to  the  Clitumnus  is  as  a  whole  a 
summary  of  Italian  history,  the  last  verses  are  a 
prophecy  ;  and  the  words  in  question  associate 
Carducci's  mood  of  the  moment  with  a  line  of 
interest  very  dear  to  him — the  revivification  of  the 
Hellenic  ideal,  of  which  Italy  was  to  give  a  re- 
expression,  and  of  which  he  felt  himself  an  apostle. 
For  he  is  here  applying  to  Italy  a  thought  that 
was  originally  applied  to  Athens  herself,  and 
became  in  various  adaptations  a  sort  of  common- 
place. It  first  appeared  in  a  decree  of  the  Del- 
phic Council,  which  declared  that  ' '  Athens  first 
won  mankind  from  the  life  of  wild  beasts  to  gen- 
tleness. ' '  It  occurs  again  in  Dion  of  Halicaruas- 
sus  :  ' '  The  Athenians  made  gentle  our  common 
life,"  or  to  report  exactly  the  translation  of  Gil- 
bert Murray,  ' '  made  gentle  the  life  of  the 
world."  *  Italy,  mother  of  the  indite  arti,  is  to 
Carducci  the  new  Athens,  the  great  civilizer  ; 
but  her  civilization  is  not  to  be  that  which  "made 
a  desert  and  called  it  the  kingdom  of  God, ' '  but 
a  culture  rational  and  sensitive,  full  of  intellect 
and  soul;  and  its  monument  will  be  not  of 
marble  from  Serravezza  or  Versilia,  beautiful  as 
that  may  be  with  its  intertwining  vein  of  color, 
but  from 

Paro  gentil  dal  cui  marpesio  fianco 
Uscian  d'  Ellas  gli  del  .  .  . 

O  Paro,  o  Grecia,  antichitii  serena, 
Datemi  i  marmi  e  i  carmi.3 


A.  A.  LIVINGSTON. 


Cornell  University. 


A  CORRECTION. 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — In  a  recent  article  in  Modern  Language 
Notes  (January,  1911,  p,  152)  I  refer  to  Lord 
Burleigh,  or  Burghley,  as  '  only  five  years  senior 
to  Leicester  and  the  Queen.'  Instead  of  'five 
years, '  '  thirteen  years '  should  be  read,  for  Burgh- 
ley  was  born  in  1520,  Elizabeth  in  1533,  and 
Leicester  in  1532  or  1533.  I  am  quite  unable 
to  explain  how  the  inaccuracy  got  into  my  text 
and  escaped  my  notice  in  the  proof,  in  spite  of  a 
careful  preliminary  verification  of  the  dates  con- 

1  For  the  text  and  history  of  the  Greek  citations,  see 
Gilbert  Murray,  The  Rise  of  the  Greek  Epic,  Oxford, 
Clarendon  Press,  1907,  pp.  2  and  28. 

3  Intermezzo,  ix. 


cerned.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  necessary  cor- 
rection will  affect  my  argument  in  any  appreciable 
degree. 

C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE. 

Yale  University. 


BRIEF  MENTION. 

The  translation  by  Professor  Josselyn  of  Fla- 
mini's  Avviamento  allo  Studio  della  Divina  Corn- 
media,1  is  as  welcome  as  it  is  attractive  in  appear- 
ance. The  original  work  occupies  so  peculiar  a 
position,  compared  with  other  hand-books  of 
Dante  studies,  as  to  make  it  extremely  desirable 
that  it  should  be  easily  accessible  to  those  inter- 
ested in  the  subject,  whose  command  of  Italian 
is  imperfect.  As  the  author  says  in  his  preface, 
it  is  indeed  "not  a  work  of  compilation,"  and 
even  those  who  disagree  with  his  conclusions  will 
admit  that  it  marks  a  distinct  advance,  in  inter- 
pretation, beyond  other  works  with  a  similar 
object. 

The  translation  invites  confidence,  and  has  been 
revised  by  the  author,  who  has  also  made  correc- 
tions and  additions,  and  brought  the  bibliography 
up  to  date.  It  may  be  said,  too,  that  notwithstand- 
ing the  warning  that  the  work  "has  been  translated 
with  more  attention  to  fidelity  than  to  literary 
elegance,"  the  result  is  an  exceedingly  readable 
book.  It  would  be  a  very  exacting  critic  who 
would  presume  to  point  out  serious  faults  of  ex- 
pression, altho  the  following  sentences  might  be 
improved  :  "  It  is  more  exact  to  call  it  by  this 
name,  ['the  mountain  of  Earthly  Paradise'] 
rather  than  the  mountain  of  Purgatory,  since  the 
latter  is  only  temporary  (from  the  Redemption  to 
the  Last  Judgment)5'  (p.  44,  n.  4).  "Then 
they  descend  into  the  seventh  ledge"  (p.  57), 
"...  until  towards  the  end  of  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century"  (pp.  118-119).  One  may 
object  also  to  the  following  :  ' '  Lucifer  has  six 
wings,  in  large  part  because  he  is  a  seraphim" 
(p.  40,  n. );  and  to  the  note  on  "  Francesca  da 
Polenta  "  :  "  Oftener  called  Francesca  da  Rimini, 
from  the  town  over  which  the  Polentas  were  lords  " 
(p.  55,  n. ),  and  perhaps  to  the  use  of  the  Shak- 
sperian  "luxury"  (p.  80)  to  translate  "lussuria." 

The  translator  is  to  be  thanked  for  adding  a 
"short  list  of  books  in  English,  useful  for  the 
beginner  in  Dante  study, ' '  which,  however,  does 
not  include  Fay's  Concordance,  and  Grandgent's 
Inferno  is  placed  under  the  head  of  translations 
of  the  Canzoniere. 


1  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Divine  Comedy  by  Fran- 
cesco Flamini.  Translated  by  Freeman  M.  Josselyn. 
Boston-New  York-Chicago-London  :  Ginn  and  Company. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES 


VOL.  XXVI. 


BALTIMOKE,   MARCH,    1911. 


No.  3. 


SOME  PROPER  NAMES  IN  LAYAMON'S 

BRUT  NOT  REPRESENTED  IN  WACE 

OR  GEOFFREY  OF  MONMOUTH 

The  investigation  of  names  in  Arthurian  texts 
has  sometimes  thrown  light  on  the  sources  of  these 
works,  and  the  following  notes  on  certain  names 
in  Layamon  which  are  not  found  in  Wace,  the 
main  source  (if  we  accept  the  general  opinion)  of 
the  English  poet,  nor  in  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth, 
are  accordingly  offered  as  a  contribution  to  the 
question  of  the  sources  of  his  Brut. 

1.  Argante,  Argant,  Argane.  This  name  for 
the  elf- queen  who  takes  Arthur  to  Avalon,  after 
he  has  been  wounded  in  his  last  battle,  occurs 
twice  in  Layamon' s  poem,1  viz.,  1.  23071  (Mad- 
den, n,  546)  and  1.  28613  (Madden,  in,  144). 
In  the  Cotton  MS.  Caligula  A.  ix  (the  older  and, 
on  the  whole,  the  better  MS.  )  it  is  spelt  Argante 
in  both  places  ;  in  the  Cotton  MS.  Otho,  C.  xni, 
it  is  spelt  Argane  in  the  first  of  these  passages, 
Argant  in  the  second. 

As  far  as  I  know,  the  first  person  to  express  in 
print  a  doubt  as  to  whether  we  have  not  in  the 
Layamon  MSS.  here  simply  a  corruption  for  Mor- 
gan— the  name  of  the  famous  fairy  of  Arthurian 
romance — was  A.  C.  L.  Brown  in  Modern  Philol- 
ogy, i,  103  (1903).  Professor  Brown,  however, 
does  not  argue  the  question,  merely  remarking  of 
the  name  Argante  in  a  brief  parenthesis,  "per- 
haps, a  corruption  for  Morgan  the  fay."  J  Lat- 

lLayamon's  Brut,  edited  by  Sir  Frederic  Madden  (for 
the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  London),  3  vols.,  London, 
1847.  The  best  bibliography  of  Layamon  is  that  pub- 
lished by  B.  S.  Monroe  in  The  Journal  of  English  and 
Germanic  Philology,  vn,  139-141  (1908). 

s  R.  H.  Fletcher  seems  to  imply  the  same  thing,  when 
he  speaks  of  "  Argante  the  courteous,  doubtless  the  Mor- 
gaate,  queen  of  Avalon,  of  Geoffrey's  Vita  Mcrlini."  See 
his  Arthurian  Material  in  the  Chronicles,  p.  165,  Harvard 
Studies  and  Notes  in  Philology  and  Literature,  vol.  X  (1906). 
Professor  Brown's  suggestion,  as  will  be  seen  below,  is 
hardly  consistent  with  his  opinion  that  Layamon  drew 
directly  from  Welsh  sources.  The  note  to  my  recent  edi- 


terly  E.  Brugger,  in  the  Zs.  fur  franzosische 
Sprache  und  Literatur,  xxxv,  9,  note  (1909), 
has  expressed  this  view  unhesitatingly  in  the 
following  words  :  ' '  Der  Name  Morguen  kommt 
auch  (entstellt)  ohne  M  vor  ;  ich  erwahne  hier 
nur  Layamons  Argante  und  verweise  auf  oben 
citiertes  Organic"  (i.  e.,  in  Maerlant's  Dutch 
Merlin).  Before  seeing  Dr.  Brugger' s  article  I 
had  taken  the  same  ground  in  my  edition  of  the 
Old  French  prose  romance,  Mort  Artu  (Halle, 
1910),  p.  304.  No  one  so  far,  however,  has  at- 
tempted to  explain  exactly  how  the  supposed  cor- 
ruption came  about  or  has  considered  the  neces- 
sary consequences  which  the  theory  of  corruption 
involves.  These  are  the  matters  which  I  purpose 
taking  up  in  the  present  article. 

It  may  be  said  at  the  outset  that  Miss  L.  A. 
Paton  in  her  Studies  in  the  Fairy  Mythology  of 
Arthurian  Romance3  (Boston,  1903),  pp.  26  f. 
(including  notes)  shows  by  numerous  examples 
that  Argant  enters  as  an  element  into  compound 
names*  of  both  men  and  women  in  mediaeval 
Breton  and  even  Welsh,  and  accordingly  she  de- 
fends the  genuineness  of  the  name.  R.  Imel- 
mann,  Layamon,  Versuch  ilber  seine  Quellen 
(Berlin,  1906),  pp.  26  f.,  accepts  also  the  name 
as  genuine 5  and  repels  somewhat  vehemently 
Brown's  suggestion  of  corruption  in  the  text — 
only  he  adds  that  it  must  be  Cornish  or  Breton, 
since  by  regular  phonetic  law  the  form  would  be 

tion  of  the  Old  French  prose  romance,  J\Iort  Artu  (Halle, 
1910),  pp.  303  ff.,  betrays  the  same  inconsistency.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  curious  in  view  of  Imelmann's  theory 
concerning  Layamon' s  sources  (see  his  Layamon,  Versuch 
iiber  seine  Quellen,  pp.  26  f.,  Berlin,  1906)  that  he  should 
resist  so  strongly  the  idea  that  Argante  might  be  a  corrup- 
tion of  the  French  name. 

3Radcliffe  College  Monographs,  No.  13. 

*Miss  Paton  (p.  27,  note  3)  gives  only  one  Welsh  ex- 
ample, Arganhell — which  is  used  both  as  a  masculine  and 
a  feminine  name. 

6Imelmann,  p.  26,  note  1,  cites  W.  Stokes, "  The  Manu- 
missions in  the  Bodmin-Gospels,".Rmte  Celtique,  I,  332 ff., 
for  evidence  that  Argant  is  common  as  an  element  in  the 
composition  of  proper  names  in  Cornish  and  Breton. 


66 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


Ariant  in  Welsh.  But,  after  all,  the  two  writers 
just  cited  leave  their  case  in  a  very  unsatisfactory 
condition,  for,  although  they  have  shown  that 
Argant  enters  into  the  composition  of  proper 
names,  they  have  not  shown  that  it  was  ever  used 
alone  as  a  proper  name,8  nor  have  they  succeeded 
in  connecting  it  with  any  supernatural  being.  On 
the  other  hand,  Miss  Paton  acknowledges  (p.  26) 
that  in  all  other  accounts  of  Arthur's  death  and 
translation  besides  Layamon,  with  the  single  ex- 
ception of  the  thirteenth  century  poem,  Gesta  Re- 
gum  Britanniae,  in  which  she  is  unnamed,  the 
supernatural  woman  who  heals  Arthur's  wounds 
is  called  Morgan  (in  some  of  its  variant  forms). 
This  fact,  in  itself,  creates  a  strong  presumption 
that  the  forms  in  the  Layamon  MSS.  are  merely 
corruptions  of  Morgan.  I  shall  accordingly  pro- 
ceed with  an  attempt  to  explain  the  different  fea- 
tures of  the  alteration  which  the  original  name 
has  suffered. 

In  Old  French  texts  we  have  both  Morgan"1 
and  Morgant 8  as  forms  of  the  name  of  the  famous 
fairy  of  Arthurian  romance.  Now,  as  far  as  the 
alteration  of  o  to  a  (in  the  radical  syllable)  is 
concerned,  not  only  have  we  in  two  MSS.  of  Chre"- 
tien's  Yvain,  1.  2953  (W.  Foerster's  large  edi- 
tion, Halle,  1887),  the  variant,  Margue,  for  the 
name  of  the  fairy,  but  the  Layamon  text  itself 
gives  evidence  of  how  easily  this  alteration  could 

6  Sir  Frederic  Madden,  in,  385,  mentions  the  simple 
Argant  as  an  "  Armoric  name  and  borne  by  the  daughter 
of  Constantin  (see  Lobineau's  Hist,  de  Eretagne,  vol.  i. 
fol.  par.  1707)."     I  presume  that  Madden  refers  to  p.  50 
of  Lobineau  (Paris,  1707),  but  I  find,  on  looking  up  the 
passage,  that  Argant  here,   as  everywhere  else,    occurs 
merely  in  composition  — Argantael. 

7  This  is,  no  doubt,  nearest  to  the  original  French  form 
of  the  name,  as  it  was  first  adopted  from  the  Celtic,  al- 
though it  is  much  less  frequent  in  the  French  texts  than 
some  other  forms.    See  Miss  Paton,  p.  257.    She  gives,  pp. 
255  ft. ,  a  full  list  of  variants  of  the  name  in  Old  French 
texts.     A  few  additions  will  be  found  in  Brugger's  note, 
cited  in  the  first  part  of  this  article. 

8  See  Miss  Paton,  p.  258,  note  2,  who  gives  parallels  of 
this  variation,  -an,  -ant  for  other  Old  French  names,  too. 
A  glance  through  such  a  work  as  E.  Langlois'  Table  des 
noms  propres  de  toute  nature  compris  dans  les  chansons  de  geste 
imprimecs  (Paris,  1904),  shows  that  the  list  might  be  ex- 
tended almost  indefinitely.     Morgant,  it  may  be  observed, 
is  used  almost  exclusively  in  the  so-called  Livre  d'  Artus 
of  MS.  337  (Bibl.  Nat.).     See  E.  Freymond,  Zs.fiirfran- 
zosische  Sprache  und  Literatur,  xvn,  38,  note. 


take  place,  since  within  the  space  of  three  lines  in 
the  older  MS.  (11.  3847-9,  Madden,  i,  164),  we 
have  the  name  of  the  same  person  (Cordelia's 
nephew)  written  Margane  as  well  as  Morgan  (the 
usual  form).  Similarly,  the  MSS.  of  the  Conte  del 
Graalg  give  the  variant  forms,  Marcades,  Mor- 
chades  (Morgades~)  for  the  name  of  Morgan's  sis- 
ter, the  mother  of  Gawain,  and  Malory  calls  the 
same  character  Margawse  (Sommer's  ed.,  i,  38) 
as  well  as  Morgause  or  Morgawse  (pp.  88,  233  et 
passim).10 

Still  further,  it  is  obvious  that  the  e  in  Argante 
and  Argane  is  merely  the  common  sign  of  the 
French  feminine11  attached  respectively  to  the 
-ant  and  -an  forms. 

It  only  remains  now  to  furnish  parallels  for  the 
loss  of  the  initial  M.  Fortunately,  this  is  not 
hard  to  do,  for  in  most  of  the  MSS.  of  the  Roman 
de  Troie,  1.  8024,"  we  find  that  the  name  is  writ- 
ten without  the  initial  M.  Indeed,  oat  of  the 

9  Miss  Paton  (p.  138,  note  6)  herself  gives  the  variants. 

10  Cp.   also  the  variants  Morgetiud,  Margetiut  in  Miss 
Paton' s  book,  p.  264.     The  change  of  o  to  a  in  mediaeval 
MSS.  is  so  common,  indeed,  that  it  hardly  requires  illus- 
tration. 

11  Just  as  in  Spanish  and  Italian  the  name  becomes 
Morgana. 

12  Edition  (1904—)  of  Leopold  Constans,  I,  434  (Socie'te' 
des  Anciens  Textes  Francais).     The  lines  pertinent  to  the 
present  inquiry  read  : 

Hector  monta  sor  Galatee 
Que  li  tramist  Orva  la  fee, 
Que  mout  1'ama  e  mout  1'ot  chier 
Mais  ne  la  voust  o  sei  couch  ier  : 
Empor  la  honte  qu'ele  en  ot, 
L'en  hai  tant  come  ele  plus  pot, 
Co  fu  li  tres  plus  beaus  chevaus 
Sor  que  montast  nus  horn  charnaus. 

In  its  use  of  the  motif  ot  Morgan's  hatred  on  account  of 
rejected  love  the  Roman  de  Troie  (composed  about  1160) 
anticipates  by  half  a  century,  at  least,  the  Mori  Arlu  (see 
the  episode  in  this  romance,  pp.  50  ff.  of  my  edition, 
where  Lancelot  is  the  object  of  her  hatred).  The  same 
motive  is  perhaps  implied,  though  not  expressed,  in  the 
Agravain  (see  P.  Paris,  Romans  de  la  Table  Ronde,  v,  317), 
which,  as  I  have  said,  Mort  Artu,  p.  xxxiii,  appears  to 
me  to  have  the  same  author  as  this  last-named  romance. 
In  the  earlier  imprisonment  of  Lancelot  by  Morgan  in  the 
Lancelot,  P.  Paris,  iv,  290  ff.,  which  suggested  the  corres- 
ponding episode  in  the  Agravain,  the  fairy  is  not  in  love 
with  Lancelot.  See  ibid.,  pp.  300  ff.,  how  she  sets  on  her 
damsel  to  tempt  him. 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


67 


eighteen  "  MSS.,  whose  variants  for  the  passage  are 
recorded  in  Constans'  edition  only  six  show  the 
M  (all  with  small  in),  viz.,  morgain,  MSS.  251, 
Bibliothdque  de  la  Faculte"  de  Medicine  (Mont- 
pellier),  783  ;  morguein,  MS.  6534,  n.  a. ;  mor- 
gan,  MSS.  2181,  Regina  (Vatican),  1505  ;  mor- 
ganz,  MS.  794.  We  find  the  following  forms  in 
the  remaining  MSS.  :  orua,  MS.  12600  ;  orna,  MSS. 
903,  Bibliotheca  Nazionale  xui.  C.  8  (Naples); 
oua,  MS.  1610  ;  orains,  MSS.  782,  1553,  Bib. 
Ambrosiana  D  55  (Milan);  orainz,  MS.  19159; 
ornains,  MS.  375  :  orueins,  MS.  6774,  n.  a. ;  or- 
uain,  MS.  3342  (Arsenal);  ornais,  MS.  60. 

In  view  of  these  parallels  it  seems  to  me  clear 
that  Argant^e),  Argane,  are  merely  corruptions  of 
the  French  forms  of  Morgan(t~).u  The  M  may 
have  first  been  dropped  by  some  copyist  in  tran- 
scribing the  English  poem,  although  it  is  more 
likely  to  have  been  wanting  already  in  the  manu- 
script of  the  French  original  which  Layamon  used. 
In  any  event  (if  the  theory  of  corruption  is  ac- 
cepted) the  -t(e)  at  the  end  must  have  belonged 
to  the  word  in  the  French  original,  so  that  the 
form  Argant(e)  is,  in  reality,  a  French  form. 
The  name  shows,  then,  that  the  story  of  Arthur's 
translation  by  the  fairy  ladies,  whatever  may  be 
its  ultimate  origin,  was  not  derived  by  Layamon, 
as  Brown  assumes,15  from  the  Welsh.  On  the 
contrary,  the  natural  inference  from  these  condi- 
tions is  that  Layamon  knew  so  little  of  the  story 
from  any  other  source  than  his  French  original 
that  he  made  no  effort  to  give  the  name  of  the 
fairy  queen  its  original  Celtic  form18 :  he  merely 

"Unless  it  is  otherwise  noted,  the  MSS.  cited  are  in  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale  (fonds  franpais).  The  addition  of 
n.  a.  after  a  MS.  number  indicates  that  the  MS.  is  among 
the  "nouvelles  acquisitions." 

14  The  loss  of  the  initial  M  in  such  cases  was  probably 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  mediaeval  scribes  often  left  the 
space  vacant  at  the  beginning  of  a  paragraph  with  the 
intention  of  filling  it  in  later  with  an  elaborate  initial 
letter,  but  sometimes  failed  to  carry  out  this  intention.  If 
the  first  word  of  the  paragraph  were  a  proper  name,  it 
would  thus  lose  its  initial  letter.  I  have  observed  some 
other  instances  of  the  loss  of  an  initial  consonant :  Abel 
for  Babel  (see  E.  Langlois'  Table  des  noms  prapres  dans  les 
chansons  de  geste,  p.  62),  Agrilon  for  Ca(r)grilon  in  Conte 
del  Oraal,  1.  30330.  For  special  reasons  the  loss  of  an 
initial  vowel  is  of  very  common  occurrence. 

15 Modern  Philology,  I,  103  (1903). 

16  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  common  Welsh  name  for 


took  over  the  name  from  this  lost  (or  at  least,  as 
yet  undiscovered)  French  original  as  a  part  of 
the  story  which  he  was  paraphrasing. 

Now,  the  question  arises  :  what  was  this  French 
original?  The  Argante  episode  is  not  in  the 
printed  Wace,17  nor  in  any  MSS.  of  his  Roman  de 
Brut,  as  far  as  has  been  observed.  I  have  no 
doubt,  myself,  that  the  original  of  the  English 
poem  was  some  expanded  version  of  Wace,  such 

men,  Morgan,  would  be  in  Old  Welsh  according  to  Zim- 
mer  (W.  Foerster's  edition  of  Chretien's  Erec,  p.  zzviii, 
note),  MoTf-a.nl — according  to  J.  Rhys,  Celtic  Folklore, 
Welsh  and  Manx,  I,  374  (Oxford,  1901)  successively  Mor- 
cant,  Morgant,  Morgan.  The  first  two  of  these  three  forms 
are  actually  found  in  the  Welsh  poems  printed  by  W.  F. 
Skene,  Four  Ancient  Books  of  Wales,  2  vols.,  Edinburgh, 
1868.  Rhys  (loc.  cit.,  note)  cites  also  from  mediaeval 
charters  Morcant,  Morcunn,  Morgunn  as  forms  of  the 
name.  Morcunt,  Morgant  could,  of  course,  become  cor- 
rupted to  the  forms  in  the  Layamon  MSS.,  but,  if  we  are 
to  believe  Professor  Rhys,  this  masculine  name  could 
never  have  been  the  Welsh  name  for  the  fairy  queen.  He 
has  repeatedly  stated  that  the  name  for  this  personage 
must  have  been  Morgen  (later  Morien).  See  the  book 
just  quoted,  I,  373  ft*. — also  his  Arthurian  Legends,  pp. 
348 f.  (Oxford,  1891),  where  he  had  already  equated 
her  with  the  Irish  Muirgen. — Morgan  le  Fay  was  entirely 
unknown  to  Welsh  saga,  according  to  Zimmer,  Zs.filr 
franz.  Sprache  u.  Lit.,  xn,  239,  if  we  accept  his  limitation 
of  the  word  Britones  to  the  Bretons — which,  to  be  sure,  is 
disputed.  But,  however,  this  may  be,  the  only  time  her 
name  appears  in  what  we  may  regard  as  a  strictly  Celtic 
source,  viz.,  the  Vila,  Merlini  (ascribed  to  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth  and  composed  about  1148),  11.  290  ff.,  whether 
it  be  derived  in  this  case  from  the  Breton  or  the  Welsh,  it 
is  in  the  form  assumed  by  Professor  Rhys,  viz.,  Morgen. — 
Wulker,  Paul  and  Braune's  Beit  rage,  in,  544  ff.,  and 
Brown,  Harvard  Studies  and  Notes  in  Philology  and  Liter- 
ature,vn,  p.  189,  have  pointed  out  that  .the  forms  of  names 
in  Layanion  are  often  closer  to  the  Welsh  than  in  Wace, 
but  this  may  be  due,  of  course,  to  his  French  original. — 
The  French  Morgain  (Morgan), which  rendered,  no  doubt, 
the  original  Celtic  form,  was  sometimes  misunderstood  as 
an  accusative  feminine  form  after  the  analogy  of  Berle- 
Bertain,  Margue-Margain  and  other  proper  names  (see 
Gaston  Paris'  article,  Romania,  xxm,  323 ff.,  for  numer- 
ous examples)  and  new  nominative  forms,  Morg(h)e, 
Morgue,  were  inferred.  These  do  not,  however,  always 
remain  nominatives. 

In  conclusion  to  this  note  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  we 
appear  to  have  Morgen  as  a  masculine  name  in  William 
of  Maltnesbury's  De  Antiquitate  Olastoniensis  Ecclesiae. 
Cf.  F.  Lot,  Romania,  xxvn,  530 f.  (1898). 

"Roman  de  Brut,  ed.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  2  vols., 
Rouen,  1836-8. 


68 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


as  Imelmann 18  has  argued  for.  The  evidence  of 
the  two  remaining  names  which  I  am  about  to 
consider  points  strongly  in  the  same  direction. 

2.  Meleon.  This  name  for  one  of  Mordred's 
sons — the  one  who  was  slain  by  Constantino,  Ar- 
thur's successor— occurs  at  1.  28742  (Madden,  m, 
150)  of  Layamon's  text.  Neither  of  these  sons  is 
named  in  Geoffrey  or  Wace.  The  genitive  form, 
Malaeones,  occurs  at  1.  28753  (Madden,  ibid.}. 
Our  only  authority  here  is  the  older  manuscript, 
Cotton,  Caligula,  A.  ix,  since  the  passage  is  want- 
ing in  the  other  MS.  Sir  Frederic  Madden  re- 
marks (in,  412):  "The  name  of  one  of  Mor- 
dred's sons  is  not  given  in  the  French  text  [i.  e., 
Wace]  nor  by  Geoffrey  ;  nor  does  it  occur  in  any 
of  the  works  I  have  consulted."  Imelmann  (p. 
35)  cites  Melion  li  in  the  lay  of  that  title  (pub- 
lished by  W.  Horak  in  Zs.  fur  roman.  Philologie, 
Vi,  94  ff.)  as  a  similar  name.  But  there  is,  of 
course,  no  connection  between  this  character  and 
Layamon's  Meleon.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
what  is  evidently  the  same  name  given  to  the 
eldest  of  Mordred's  sons  in  the  Vulgate  Mort 

18  Layamon :    Versuch  iiber  seine   Quellen,   pp.    84,  87. 
Whether  the  expansions  of  this  hypothetical  version  were 
drawn  from  just  the  sources  which  Imelmann  indicates  I 
will  not  undertake  here  to  decide.     For  a  poem  of  Wace's 
— his  Conception — which  has  been  thus  expanded  by  inter- 
polations from  other  works,  see  Paul   Meyer's  article, 
Romania,  xvi,  232  ff.  (1887). 

19  The  Dutch  Roman  van  Lancelot  (ed.  W.  J.  A.  Jonck- 
bloet,  The  Hague,  1846-9),  Part  in,  164 ff.,  has  the  same 
name  in  the  form  of  Melions.     This  portion  of  the  Dutch 
poem  is  based  on  the  lost  French  romance  called  Torec. 
Cp.  G.  Paris,  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,  xxx,  pp. 
263  ff.     We  find  elsewhere  in  the  Roman  van  Lancelot 
(ibid.,  p.  13)  Melian  as  the  name  of  a  son  of  the  King  of 
Denmark.     This  is  identical  with  the  name  of  the  well- 
known  Arthurian  knight,  Melianz,  Melian(t)  de  Lis  (in 
Conte    del   Graal,  Vengeance  de  Raguidel  and  other  ro- 
mances).    Cf.  also  Melian  le  Oai  in  the  prose  Lancelot, 
P.  Paris,  IV,  257  ff.     The  name  occurs  also  in  the  Perles- 
vaus,  prose  Tristan,  etc. 

Imelmann  (loc.  cit.)  believes  that  Meleon  comes  from 
Welsh  Maelgwn  (Layamon's  Malgus,  Madden,  ill,  153). 
This  is  phonetically  probable,  but  the  resemblances  be- 
tween the  careers  of  Layamon's  Meleon  and  the  historical 
Maelgwn  which  he  points  out  seem  to  me  very  slight. 

In  view  of  the  occurrence  of  the  name  in  the  Mort  Artu 
E.  H.  Fletcher's  idea  that  the  name  Meleon  was  invented 
by  Layamon  is  no  longer  tenable.  See  his  Arthurian  Ma- 
terial in  the  Chronicles,  p.  158. 


Artu  (see  my  edition,  pp.  2541).  In  MS.  342 
(Bibl.  Nat.)  of  that  work  the  name  appears  as 
Malehaus  (nominative),  Malehaut  (oblique) — un- 
der the  influence,  doubtless,  of  the  name  of  Gui- 
nevere' s  famous  confidante,  the  ' '  dame  de  Male- 
haut "  (P.  Paris,  Romans  de  la  Table  Eonde,  in, 
222  ff.  et  passim) — but  in  Royal  19.  C.  xni  (see 
variants  given  at  the  bottom  of  the  page),  which 
is  significantly  in  the  Anglo-Norman  dialect,  we 
have  in  both  places  Melehan.  The  coincidence 
is  suggestive  for  the  sources  of  both  Layamon's 
Brut  and  the  Mort  Artu,  since  it  shows  that  the 
authors  of  both  works  must  have  used  for  the 
parts  of  their  narratives  which  we  are  considering 
some  other  source  than  the  Wace  (or  Geoffrey) 
that  we  know.  I  believe  that  this  source  was 
Imelmann' s  hypothetical  expansion  of  Wace's 
Brut.  Layamon,  no  doubt,  got  the  name  directly 
from  this  source.  One  cannot  make  the  same 
assertion  quite  so  positively  of  the  French  ro- 
mance, but  in  any  event  they  must  have  had 
ultimately  a  common  source.20 

20 1  regret  that  I  did  not  observe  this  coincidence  be- 
tween Layamon  and  the  Mort  Artu,  whilst  preparing  my 
edition  of  the  latter.  In  the  Mort  Artu  (p.  255)  it  is  Bors 
who  kills  Malehaut  (Melehan)  in  the  battle  at  Winchester 
which  Lancelot  fights  against  the  two  sons  of  Mordred. 
Lancelot  himself  slays  the  other  son  (p.  256)  later  in  this 
battle.  In  Geoffrey,  Wace  and  Layamon  one  of  the  sons 
is  slain  at  London,  the  other  at  Winchester — both  while 
seeking  sanctuary.  In  the  Mort  Artu,  as  we  have  seen, 
both  fall  on  the  field  of  battle  at  Winchester.  It  seems 
probable  that  the  author  of  the  French  romance,  using 
here  some  Brut  (derived,  no  doubt,  ultimately  from 
Wace)  compressed  into  one  the  originally  separate  narra- 
tives of  the  deaths  of  these  two  characters,  making  them 
die  together.  In  a  similar  spirit  he  reduced  to  one  battle 
the  three  which,  according  to  the  older  accounts,  were 
fought  between  Arthur  and  Mordred  (see  my  note  to  the 
Mort  Artu,  pp.  291  ff.).  It  was  the  author  of  the  Mort 
Artu,  too,  probably,  who  substituted  Lancelot  for  Constan- 
tine  as  the  avenger  of  Arthur  on  the  sons  of  Mordred.  He 
is  most  likely  responsible,  furthermore,  for  the  change  in 
the  manner  of  their  death,  which  is  transferred  from  the 
sanctuary  to  the  battlefield. 

The  matter  which  I  have  been  commenting  on  seems, 
then,  to  furnish  proof  that  the  author  of  the  Mort  Artu 
used  for  this  episode  some  other  source  than  Geoffrey  or 
Wace — in  all  probability,  some  expanded  version  of  Wace, 
but  in  any  event  a  Brut.  This  circumstance  strengthens 
the  suspicion  that  other  incidents  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
romance  may  have  been  derived  from  the  same  source  (or, 
possibly,  similar  sources),  e.  g.,  the  incident  of  Girflet  and 


March,   1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


69 


My  conclusion  as  to  the  relations  of  Layamon's 
source  and  the  prose  Lancelot  (or  Mori  Artu')  is 
just  the  opposite,  it  will  be  observed,  of  Imel- 
mann's  (pp.  57  ff.).  He  assumes  that  the  latter 
influenced  the  former.  But  the  prose  Lancelot 
was,  in  all  probability,  composed  later  than  Lay- 
amon,  to  say  nothing  of  Layamon's  sources. 

3.  Oriene,  Orient1  This  name  is  not  found 
in  Geoffrey  or  Wace.  It  occurs,  however,  in 
Layamon  as  the  name  of  the  daughter  of  Octaves 
(represented  as  King  of  Britain  in  the  time  of 
Constantine  the  Great),  who  is  given  in  marriage 
to  Maximian,  her  father's  successor.  The  form 

the  sword  and  the  translation  of  the  wounded  Arthur  by 
the  fairy  ladies.  It  was  this  suspicion  which  led  me  to 
express  myself  cautiously  in  the  Introduction,  p.  xxxvi, 
to  the  Mort  Artu,  when  I  said  :  "Incidentally,  however, 
our  author  in  this  part  of  the  story  drew  from  sources 
which,  if  written,  have  not  been  identified." 

As  other  indications  of  a  lost  Brut  source  for  the  Mort 
Artu  one  may  cite,  perhaps,  the  following  passages : 
1.  Where  Arthur  learns  from  a  messenger  of  Mordred's 
treason,  Mort  Artu,  p.  202,  and  sees  in  this  intelligence 
the  realization  of  a  prophetic  dream.  Cf.  with  this  Lay- 
amon (Madden,  in,  117  ff.  )•  Here  the  messenger  does 
not  announce  the  news  of  Mordred's  treason  until  after 
Arthur  has  related  the  prophetic  dream  which  he  had 
the  night  before.  His  dream,  to  be  sure,  is  different  from 
that  in  the  Mort  Artu,  although  both  are  allegorical. 
Moreover,  in  Layamon  Guinevere,  as  in  the  older  forms 
of  the  story,  shares  Mordred's  guilt.  Evidently,  as  re- 
gards the  relations  of  Layamon  and  the  Mort  Artu,  one 
can  only  claim  that  they  go  back  ultimately  to  the  same 
source.  The  significant  thing,  however,  is  that  Wace, 
whom  we  have  been  accustomed  to  regard  as  Layamon's 
source,  mentions  neither  messenger  nor  dream.  The  same 
is  true  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  Book  x,  ch.  132.  2,  Ar- 
thur's dream  of  the  Wheel  of  Fortune,  Mort  Artu,  p.  220. 
This  occurs  also  (with  very  considerable  differences )  in  the 
alliterative  Middle  English  Morte  Arthure,  11.  3223  ff. 
Cp.  my  note  to  the  passage,  p.  291,  of  my  edition  of  the 
Mort  Artu.  Here,  too,  I  believe  that  the  ultimate  source 
of  the  French  romance  and  the  English  poem  is  the  same. 
When  I  remarked  in  the  note  just  cited  that  I  believed 
that  this  dream  came  into  "Arthurian  literature"  (I 
should  have  said  definitely  the  Mort  Artu)  from  some 
Brut  now  lost,  I  had  not  observed  that  Imelmann,  p.  57, 
had  already  asserted  a  common  source  for  the  alliterative 
poem  and  the  Mort  Artu  (or  Lancelot,  as  he  calls  it),  as 
regards  this  dream. 

21 1  agree  with  Imelmann,  p.  35,  that  Layamon  got  this 
name  from  a  French  and  not  Welsh  source.  I  do  not 
think,  however,  that  his  discussion  contributes  anything 
to  the  elucidation  of  its  origin. 


Orien  occurs  once  in  the  older  MS.  1.  11504 
(Madden,  u,  55),  where  the  later  MS.  has  the 
form  with  -e.  Orien  is  found  besides  in  both  MSS. 
at  1.  11602  (Madden,  n,  59)  and  at  1.  11558 
(Madden,  n,  57)  in  the  older  MS."  In  the  later 
MS.  several  lines  here  are  wanting.  The  -e  is 
evidently  the  French  feminine  ending.  Is  not 
this  name  simply  a  French  variant  of  the  Welsh 
woman's  name,  Orwent  That  name  occurs  in 
the  Latin  romance,23  Vita  Meriadoci  (more 
properly  Historia  Meriadoci"),  p.  352,  with  the 
spelling  Oruen.  The  only  thing  necessary  to 
convert  this  form  into  Orten(e)  would  be  for  some 
scribe  to  leave  off  the  second  stroke  of  the  «,  and 
how  easy  that  was  no  one  who  has  any  acquaintance 
with  mediaeval  MSS.  needs  to  be  told.  If  I  am 
right  in  my  identification,  this  name  too  would 
furnish  striking  evidence  that  Layamon  was  wholly 
dependent  on  his  French  sources  and  did  not 
recognize  a  Welsh  name  in  the  form  which  he 
had  before  him." 

J.  D.  BRUCE. 

University  of  Tennessee. 


"The  older  MS.  has  Oriene  also  at  1. 12004  and  1. 12099, 
where  the  later  MS.  has  Vrsele.  The  latter  is  apparently 
the  right  reading  for  this  particular  passage.  See  Mad- 
den, m,  347. 

23  See  my  edition  of  this  romance,  Publications  of  the 
Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  XV,  326  ff. 
(1900).  I  discuss  this  name  especially  p.  330,  note  4. 
I  had  not  thought  at  the  time,  however,  of  the  connection 
between  Layamon's  Orien(e)  and  Orwen. 

14  Everything,  it  seems  to  me,  points  to  the  justice  of 
Imelmann's  conclusion  that  all  really  important  variations 
of  Layamon  from  Wace — the  expansions,  etc. — are  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  English  poet  was  following  a  French 
source  which  differed  from  Wace.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
passage  in  Layamon  (Madden,  n,  pp.  384-408)  which 
extends  from  Arthur's  birth  to  his  coronation  and  includes 
the  story  of  Ether's  last  wars  and  death  by  poisoning. 
Its  fully  developed  narrative  is  strikingly  different  from 
the  concise  and  matter-of-fact  account  in  Wace  (Leroux 
de  Lincy's  edition,  n,  30 ff.).  One  cannot  match  this 
amplifying  method  anywhere  else  in  Middle  English 
treatments  of  romantic  material,  e.  g.,  in  the  metrical 
romances.  It  may  be  retorted,  of  course,  that  Layamon 
was  a  man  of  genius  and  constituted  an  exception  to  the 
rule.  I  should  like,  however,  to  call  attention  to  one 
feature  of  this  passage  which  has  been  given  little  consid- 
eration :  After  Arthur's  birth  we  hear  no  more  of  him  in 
Layamon  until  his  coronation.  Then,  when  his  father 
dies,  we  are  surprised  to  learn  that  he  is  in  Brittany  and 
has  to  be  summoned  thence  to  be  crowned  (Madden,  u, 


70 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


A    SUMMARY  OF  THE    PROTESTANT 
FAITH  IN  MIDDLE  LOW  GERMAN 

The  number  of  editions  of  Luther's  works  in 
Low  German  certainly  testifies  to  how  eagerly  it 
was  desired  to  gain  the  North  for  the  cause  of  the 
great  reformer,  and  to  adapt  his  writings  to  its 
vernacular.  That  we  are  dealing  here  with  trans- 
lations frequently  rather  superficially  and  hurriedly 
done,  cannot  escape  the  expert  and  careful  ob- 
server of  Low  German.  Yet  these  translations 
furnish  nevertheless  valuable  material  for  the 
study  of  the  Low  German  of  that  time.  For 
that  purpose,  for  the  sake  of  the  language,  this 
little  pamphlet  is  reprinted  here,  especially  since 
it  might  not  be  unworthy  of  notice  in  other  re- 
spects as  well.  Perhaps  it  will  likewise  stimulate 
the  study  of  the  Low  German  of  that  time,  which 
is  unfortunately  still  all  too  much  neglected. 

408 S.)-  R.  H.  Fletcher  (Arthurian  Material  in  the 
Chronicles,  p.  163)  explains  the  difficulty  by  assuming 
that  Layamon  is  here  probably  "  following  the  analogy  of 
the  case  of  Constantine,  Aurelius  and  Uther."  But 
there  is  no  real  analogy  between  the  cases.  Constantine 
(Madden,  n,  109)  was  brother  of  the  King  of  Brittany, 
who  was  sent  over  to  free  Great  Britain  from  the  tyranny 
of  Melga  and  Wanis.  Aurelius  and  Uther  had  been  taken 
over  to  Brittany  as  children  after  Vortiger' s  usurpation 
(Madden,  n,  149),  and  when  they  returned  it  was  to 
deliver  the  land  from  Hengest  and  Vortiger.  Here 
everything  is  clear  in  Layamon,  just  as  it  is  in  Wace,  I, 
299  ff.  and  i,  31 4  ff. ,  363  ff . ,  and  in  Geoffrey.  On  the 
other  hand,  Wace,  11,  30  ff.,  says  nothing  about  Arthur's 
residence  in  Brittany  nor  does  Geoffrey,  Book  vm,  ch. 
20  to  Book  ix,  ch.  1.  The  obscurity  here  in  Layamon  is, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  undoubtedly  due  to  some  confusion  in 
regard  to  his  source.  We  have  a  parallel  example  in  the 
Middle  English  stanzaic  Morte  Arthur,  11.  934 ff.  (E.  E. 
T.  S.  Extra  Series,  no.  88, 1903),  where  Lancelot  appears 
sick  at  the  hermit's,  although  nothing  had  been  said  of 
the  matter  before ;  but  a  reference  to  the  Old  French 
Mort  Artu,  pp.  67  ff.,  where  an  account  of  his  wounding 
is  given,  shows  that  the  English  poet  was  working  with  a 
defective  MS,  in  which  this  account  had  dropped  out  (see 
Anylia,  vol.23,  pp.  85  f. ).  Similarly  in  the  Vulgate 
Queste  (ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall,  London,  1864),  p.  231,  we 
find  the  tomb  of  Bademagus  with  an  inscription  to  the 
effect  that  he  had  been  slain  by  Gawain,  although  nothing 
has  been  said  of  this  before  in  the  romance.  The  Por- 
tuguese Dcmanda,  however,  and  MS.  112  of  the  Biblio- 
theque  Nationale  (see  my  edition  of  the  Mort  Artu,  p. 
266)  contain  this  missing  account  and  show  that  the 
Queste  printed  by  Dr.  Furnivall  is  defective  here. 


On  the  sixteenth  of  October,1  1529,  at  the 
assembly  of  the  Protestant  estates  in  Schwabach, 
the  Wittenberg  theologians,  among  them  Luther, 
had  drawn  up  a  confession.  These  theses  were 
submitted  at  Torgau  to  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  at 
his  express  desire,  as  a  short  summary  of  the 
main  tenets  of  the  Protestant  faith,  at  a  time 
when  the  diet  of  Augsburg  had  already  been 
convoked. 

Without  Luther's  knowledge  these  theses  were 
printed  and  published  by  the  Coburg  printer, 
Hans  Bern.  Misled  by  the  overhasty  printer, 
the  papal  theologians,  assembled  in  Augsburg, 
composed  a  counter  document:  "A  short  and 
Christian  statement  recast  in  seventeen  theses 
at  the  present  diet  of  Augsburg  against  the  con- 
fession of  Martin  Luther." 

Luther  answered  this  by  printing  and  publish- 
ing these  Torgau  theses  with  a  preamble  from  his 
own  pen. 

Our  print  comes  from  the  establishment  of  the 
well-known  Magdeburg  printer,  Hans  Wolther  or 
Walther.  The  original  is  in  the  library  of  Wol- 
fenbiittel.  It  is  the  Low  German  translation  of 
the  so-called  Torgau  Articles,  which  in  turn  are 
based  mainly  upon  the  Marbach  Articles. 

De  bekentenisse  D.   Martini  Luthers  vp  den 

iegenwardigen  angestelden  Rykesdage 

tho  Augsburg.     In  xvij.  Artikel 

Voruatet.     M.  D.  xxx. 

De  Erste  artikel  /  van  der  Godtheyth. 

Dat  me  vaste  vnd  eyndrechticklick  lere/  dat 
allene  ein  einich  warhaftich  Godt  sy  / 
schepper  hemmels  vnde  der  erden  /  also  dat  in 
dem  eynigen  warhafitigen  Goetliken  wesen  de  dre 
vnderscheetlike  personen  syn  /  noemlick  /  Godt  de 
vader  /  Got  de  Soene  /  Godt  de  hyllige  geyst  /  dat 
de  Soene  van  dem  vader  gebaren  /  van  ewichey t 
tho  ewicheyt  rechte  natuerlike  Godt  sy  mit  dem 
vader  /  vnde  de  hyllige  geyst  beyde  vam  vader 
vnd  Soene  ys  /  ock  van  ewicheyt  tho  ewicheyt 
rechte  natuerlike  Godt  sy  mit  dem  vader  vnd 
Soene  /  wo  dat  alle  dorch  de  schrifft  klarlick  vnd 
gewaldichliken  mach  bewiszet  werden/als  Joan.  i. 
im  anfange  was  dat  wordt  vnde  dat  wort  was  by 
Godde  vnde  Godt  was  dat  wort  etc.  vnd  Matthei 
vlti.  Ghat  hen  vnde  leret  alle  Heyden  vnde 

1For  the  following  cp.  the  Erlangen  edition  of  Luther's 
works,  Vol.  24,  334  ff. 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


71 


doepet  se  in  dem  namen  des  vaders  vnde  des 
Soens  vnd  des  hylligen  geystes  vnde  der  geliken 
sproeke  mere  /  Suenderlick  in  dem  Euangelio 
Johannis. 

De  ander  Artickel  /  van  dem  Soene. 

Dat  allene  de  soene  Gades  sy  warhafftich 
mynsche  geworden  /  van  der  reynen  iunckfrouwe  / 
Marien  gebaren  mit  lyff  vnde  seele  volkomenn 
vnd  nicht  de  vader  /  edder  hyllige  geist  sy  minsche 
worden  /  Alse  de  ketter  Patripassion  gelert  heb- 
ben  /  ock  de  Soene  nicht  allene  den  lyff  ane  seele 
ange(n)omen  alse  de  Photinier  geerret  hebben/ 
wente  he  sueluest  in  dem  Euangelio  gantz  vaken  2 
van  syner  seele  (Aij)  redet/Als  dar  he  sprickt/ 
myn  seele  ys  bedroeuet  went8  in  den  dodt  etc. 
dat  ouerst  Godt  de  Sone  sy  minsche  worden  / 
steyt  Joan.  i.  klarlick  also  /  vnd  dat  wort  ys 
flesck  geworden  etc.  vnd  Ga.  iiij.  do  de  tydt 
erfuellet  was.  etc. 

De  dru'dde  Artikel  /  dat  Christus 
geleden  befit. 

Dat  de  sueluige  Gades  Soene  warhafftich  Godt 
vnde  minsche  Jesus  Christus  sy  /  eyn  eynige 
vndelike  person  /  vor  vns  mynschen  geleden  /  ge- 
cruetziget  /gestoruen  /  begrauen  /  am  druedden  dage 
vpgestan  van  den  doden  /  vpgefaren  tho  hemmel  / 
syttet  tho  der  rechtern  Godes  /  Here  ouer  alle 
creatur  /  Also  dat  me  nicht  geloeuen  edder  leren 
kan  edder  schal  dat  Jesus  Christus  alse  de  minsche 
edder  de  minscheyt  vor  vns  geleden  hebbe  /  Sun- 
der alse  de  wyle  Godt  vnde  mynsche  hyr  nichtt 
twe  personen  /  sunder  eyn  vndelike  persone  ys  / 
schal  me  holden  vnde  leren  /dat  Godt  vnd 
mynsche  /  edder  Goddes  soene  warhafftich  vor  vns 
geleden  hebbe  /  alse  Paulus  Ro.  viij.  sprickt.  Godt 
hefft  synes  eynigen  Soens  nicht  vorschonet  /  sunder 
vor  vns  alle  darhen  gegeuen  etc.  vnde  i.  Cor. 
ij.  /  Hedden  se  ene  erkant  zc.  vnd  dergeliken 
sproeke  mere. 

De  veerde  Artikel  /  van  der  Suende. 

Dat  de  arffsuende  eyn  rechte  warhafftige 
suende  sy/vnde  nicht  allene  eyn  feyl*  effte  ge- 
breck  /  sunder  ein  solcke  suende  de  alle  mynschen 
so  van  Adam  komen  vordampt  /  vnd  ewichlick 
van  Gade  schedet  /  wo  nicht  Jesus  Christus  vns 
vorsoenet  /  vnd  solcke  suende  sampt  alien  su°nden  / 
de  dar  vth  volgen  /  vp  sick  genomen  hedde  /  vnde 
dorch  syn  lydent  geuoch  daruor  gedan  /  vnde  se 
also  gantz  (Aiij)  vpgehauen  vnde  vordelget  in  sick 
suluest.  Alse  Psalm,  lij.  /  vnde  Roma.  v.  Van 
suelcker  /  klarlick  geschreuen  ys. 


1  often. 


'unto,  until. 


*  fault,  defect. 


De  voeffte  Artikel  /  van  minschen  krefften. 

Na  deme  nu  alle  mynschen  su'nder  synt/der 
su°nden  vnde  dem  dode  /  dar  tho  dem  du'uel 
vnderworpen  /  Ys  ydt  vnmochlick  dat  eyn  minsche 
sick  vth  synen  krefften  /  edder  dorch  syne  guden 
werck  her  vth  wercke  /  effte 6  helpe  /  darmede  he 
weder  recht  edder  fram  werde  /  Ja  kann  sick  ock 
nicht  bereden  edder  schicken  tho  der  gerech- 
tichey t  /  sunder  io  mer  he  vo'rnympt  sick  suluest 
her  vth  tho  werken  edder  helpen  /  io  erger  ydt 
mit  erne  wert  /  dat  ys  ouerst  de  eynige  wech  /  tho 
der  gerechticheyt/ vnde  tho  der  vorlo'synge  van 
den  suenden/vnd  dodt /So  me  an  alle  vordenst 
edder  wercke  gelouet  an  den  sone  Gades  vor  vns 
geleden  etc.  alse  gesecht  /  Solcke  loue 8  ys  vnse 
gerechticheyt  /  denn  Godt  wil  vor  gerecht  /  from  / 
vnde  hyllich  gerekent  vnd  geholden  werden  / 
alle  suende  vnd  dat  ewige  leuent  geschencket  heb- 
ben /  all  de  solcken  gelouen  an  synem  soene  heb- 
ben /  dat  se  vmme  synes  Sons  willen  schollen  tho 
genaden  genamen  vnd  kynder  syn  in  synem  ryke 
etc.  Also  dat  alle  S,  Paulus  vnde  Joannes  in 
synen  Epistelen  ricklick  leren  /  als  Ro.  x.  Mit 
dem  herte  louet  men  etc.  Johan.  iij.  Alle  de  an 
den  Sone  louen  de  schollen  nicht  verlaren  wer- 
den /  Sunder  dat  Ewige  leuent  hebben  etc. 

De  soeste  Artikel  /  vam  Louen. 

Dat  solck  eyn  loue  sy  nicht  eyn  mynschen 
werck  /  noch  vth  vnsen  krefften  mogelick  /  Sunder 
ydt  ys  eyn  Gades  werck  vnde  gaue  /  de  de  hyllige 
geist  dorch  Christum  gegeuen  /  in  vns  werket  vnde 
solcke  geloue  /  de  wile  he  nicht  ein  losz  wan  edder 
duenckent  des  herten  is  /  alse  de  valschloeuigen 
hebben  /  Sunder  ein  krefftich  nye  leuendich  we- 
sent  /  bringet  he  vele  fruchte  /  deit  iu'mmer  gut 
iegen  Godt  mit  danckenden  louende  biddende/ 
predigende  vnde  lerende  /  Jegen  dem  negesten  mit 
leue  /  deinede  /  helpen  /  raden  /  geuen  /  leuen  vnd 
liden  allerleye  ouel  went  in  den  dodt. 

De  soeuende  Artikel  /  vam  Euangelio. 

Suelcken  gelouen  tho  erlangende  /  edder  vns 
minschen-  tho  geuende  /  hefft  Godt  in  gesettet  dat 
Predick  ampt  /  edder  muendtlick  wort  /  nomlick  dat 
Euangelium  /  dorch  welker  he  sulcken  gelouen 
vnde  sine  macht  nut  vnde  frucht  vorkuendigen 
leth  /  vnde  gifft  ock  dorch  dat  suluige  alse  dorch 
ein  middel  den  gelouen  mit  sinem  hilligen  geist/ 
wan  vnde  wo  he  wil  /  sues T  ys  nen  ander  middel 
noch  wyse  /  wedder  weg  noch  stich  /  den  gelouen 
to  bekennen  /  wente  gedancken  vth  edder  vor 
deme  mu'ntliken  worde  /  wo  hillich  vnde  gudt  se 
schynen  syndt  ydt  doch  ydel  loegen  vnd  erdom. 

6  or.  "faith. 

'otherwise,  N.  H.  German  sonst. 


72 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


De  achte  Artikel  /  van  den  Sacramenten. 

By  vnde  neuen  solckem  muendtliken  worde/ 
hefft  Godt  ock  yn  gesettet  vthwendige  teken  de 
man  Sacramenta  noemet  /  Noemlick  de  Doepe  / 
vnd  Eucharistian  /  dorch  welke  Godt  ueuen  dem 
worde  /  ock  den  gelouen  vnde  synen  geist  anbuett 
vnde  gyfft  /  vnde  stercket  alle  de  syner  begeren. 

De  Negende  Artikel  / 
Van  der  Doepe. 

Dat  de  doppe  dat  erste  teken  edder  (B)  Saera- 
mente  steit  in  twen  stuecken  /  Noemelick  ym 
water  /  vnd  wort  Gades  /  edder  dat  me  mit  water 
Doepe  /  vnd  Gades  wort  spreke  /  vnde  sy  nicht  al- 
lene  slicht  water  /  edder  begeten  (als  de  Doepe 
lesters  ytzunt  leren)  Suender  de  wile  Gades  wort 
dar  by  ys  /  vnde  se  vp  Gades  wort  gegruendet  /  So 
ys  ydt  ein  hillich  leuendich  vnde  krefftich  dinck  / 
vnd  also  Paulus  secht  Titon  iij.  Ephesios  v.  Ein 
badt  der  wedder  gebort  /  vnde  vornyringe  des 
hilligen  geistes  etc.  Vnde  dat  solcke  Doepe  /  ock 
den  kindern  tho  rekende  /  vnde  mede  tho  dclende 
sy/  Gades  wort  oeuerst  /  dar  vp  se  steit  synt  desse/ 
Ghat  hen  vude  Doepet  ym  namen  des  Vaders/ 
vude  des  Sons  /  vude  des  hilligen  geistes  /  Matthei 
am  lesten  Cap.  Wol  geloeuet  etc.  Dat  mot  me 
geloeuen. 

De  Teinde  Artikel  /  vara  Sacrament 
des  Altars. 

Dat  Eucharistia  edder  des  Altars  Sacrament/ 
steit  ock  in  twen  stuecken  Noemlick  /  dar  sy  war- 
hafftichliek  yegenwardich  in  dem  brode  vnd  in 
dem  wyne  /  dat  ware  liff  vnde  blodt  Christi  /  na 
lude  der  worde  /  Dat  ys  myn  liff/  dat  ys  myn 
blodt  /  vnde  sy  nicht  allene  brodt  vnde  wyn  /  also 
ytzunt  dat  wederdeil  vergifft  /  Desse  wort  vordern 
vnde  bringen  ock  den  louen  /  oeuerst  ock  den 
sueluigen  by  alle  den  de  solcke  Sacramente  begem 
vnd  nicht  dar  wedder  handelen  /  gelick  als  de 
Doepe  ock  den  loueu  bringt  vud  gifft  /  so  men  erer 
begert. 

De  elffte  Artikel  /  van  der  Bicht. 

Dat  de  hemelike  Bicht  nicht  schal  gedwungen 
werden  mit  gesetten  /  so  weinich  alse  de  Doepe  / 
Sacrameut  /  vnde  Euangelion  schollen  gedwungen 
syn/suender  fry  /  Doch  dat  (Bij)  me  wete  wo 
gantz  troestlick  vnde  heilsam  /  nuette  vnde  gudt  se 
sy  den  bedroeuedeu  vnde  errigen  geweten  /  de  wile 
darynne  de  Absolutio  /  dat  ys  /  Gades  wort  vnde 
ordel  gespraken  wert  /  dar  dorch  dat  geweten  loss 
vnde  thofreden  wert  van  syner  bekuemmernisse  / 
Ys  ock  nicht  nodt  alle  suende  tho  uortellen  /  Men 
mach  oeuerst  anteken  vnde  seggen  de  dat  harte 
byten  vnde  vnrowich  maken. 


De  Twoclffte  Artikel  / 
Van  der  kercken. 

Dat  neen  twyuel  ys  /  ydt  sy  vnde  bliue  vp 
erden  ein  hillige  Christlike  kerke  wente  an  der 
werlt  ende/alse  Christus  sprickt  Matthei  am  lesten/ 
Sue  ick  byn  by  iuw  alle  dage  wente  in  den  ende 
der  werlt  /  Solcke  kercke  ys  nicht  anders  den  de 
geloeuigen  an  Christum  /  welcke  bauengenante  Ar- 
tikel vude  stuecke  holden  geloeuen  vnd  leren/ 
vnde  dar  auer  voruolget  vnde  gemartert  werden 
in  der  werlt  /  Wente  wor  dat  Euangelion  gepre- 
diget  wert  vnde  de  Sacramente  recht  gebruket  / 
dat  ys  de  hillige  Christlike  kercke  /Vnd  se  ys  nicht 
mit  gesetten  vnd  vthwendiger  pracht  ane  stede 
vnde  tydt  an  person  vnd  geberde  gebunden. 

De  druetteinde  Artikel  / 
Vam  iuengesten  gerichte. 

Dat  vnse  Here  Jhesus  Christus  an  dem  iuenge- 
sten  dage  kamen  wert  /  tho  richten  de  leuendigen 
vnde  de  doden  /  vnde  syne  geloeuigen  vorloesen 
van  allem  oeuel  vnde  in  dat  ewige  leuent  bringen 
de  vnloeuigen  vnd  Gotlosen  straffen  /  vnde  sampt 
den  Ducuelen  in  de  helle  vordoemen  ewichlick. 

De  veerteinde  Artikel  / 
Van  der  Ouericheit.     (Biij) 

Dat  in  des  /  so  lange  de  Here  tho  gerichte 
kuempt  /  vnde  alle  wait  vnd  herschop  vpheuen 
wert  /  schal  me  wertlike  oeuericheit  vnde  herschop 
in  eren  holden  vnde  gehorsam  syn  /  Als  einen 
standt  van  Godt  vorordent  /  thobeschuettende  de 
framen  /  unde  to  stuerende  den  boesen  /  dat  solcke 
standt  ein  Christen  wo  he  dar  tho  ordentlick  ge- 
ropen  wert  /  ane  schaden  vnde  vare 8  synes  ge- 
louens  /  vnd  syner  seelen  salicheit  woluoeren  edder 
darynne  denen  mach. 

De  Voeffteynde  Artikel  / 
Van  Minschen  lere. 

Vth  dem  alle  volget  /  dat  de  lere  so  den  Pres- 
teren  vnde  geistliken  de  Ehe  /  vnde  in  gemene 
hen  flesch  vnde  spyse  vorbuett  /  mit  allerley  Klo- 
ster  leuende  vnde  geloefften  (de  wile  men  dar 
dorch  gnade  vnd  der  seelen  salicheit  socht  vnd 
menet  /  vnd  nicht  fry  leth)  ydel  vordoemede 
dueuelische  lere  sy/Alse  ydt  S.  Pau.  j.  Timo. 
iiij.  nocmet  /  So  doch  allene  Christus  de  enige 
wech  ys/tho  der  gnade  vnd  der  seelen  salicheit. 

De  soesteinde  Artikel  / 
Van  der  Missen. 

Dat  vor  alien  gruewelen  der  Misse  alse  sues- 
8  danger. 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


73 


lange  heer/vor  em  offer  edder  gudt  werck  ge- 
holden  /  dar  mede  de  eine  dem  anderen  hefft 
gnade  vor  weruen 9  willen  /  aff  tho  doende  sy  / 
Suender  an  de  stede  solcker  Misse  /  em  Goedtlicke 
ordeniuge  geholden  werde  /  des  hilligen  Sacra- 
ments/des  lyues  vnde  blodes  Christi  beyde  ge- 
stalt  thogeuende  einem  ytliken  vp  synen  gelouen  / 
vnde  tho  syner  eigen  nottrofft. 

De  Soeuenteinde  Artikel  / 
Van  den  Cerimonien. 

Dat  me  de  Cerimonien  der  kerken  /  welcke 
wedder  Gades  wort  streuen  ock  affdoen  /  De  an- 
deren ocuerst  fry  late  syn  /  de  sueluige  tobetrach- 
tende  edder  nicbt  /  na  der  leue  /  Dar  mede  men 
nicbt  ane  orsake  licbtuerdich  ergernisse  geue  / 
edder  gemenen  frede  ane  nodt  bedroeuen. 

Soli  deo  Gloria. 

Gedruecket  tbo  Magde 

borch  Dorch  Hans 

Wolther. 


ERNST  Voae. 


University  of  Wisconsin. 


A  NOTE  ON  A  BORROWING  FROM 
CHRETIEN  DE  TROYES 

We  know  of  no  better  illustration,  in  Old 
French  chivalric  literature,  of  the  tendency  to 
insist  upon  a  conventional  literary  form  to  express 
the  medieval  ideal  of  female  beauty,  than  appears 
from  a  borrowing  of  the  portrait  of  Blanche-fleur 
in  Chretien's  Li  Contes  del  Graal,  by  the  author 
of  the  fabliau  Guillaume  au  Faucon.  A  compar- 
ison may  be  made  between  the  fabliau,1  the  Pot- 
vin  text  of  the  Perceval  story,1  and  from  another 
text  of  the  same.*  We  give  the  parallel  passages 
from  the  fabliau  and  from  the  text  of  the  MS.  794. 


'gain,  acquire. 

1Mont.  et  Kayn.  :  Rec.  des  Fabliaux  des  xiiie  et  xive 
siecles,  t.  n,  p.  94. 

J  Ch.  Potvin  :  Perceval  le  Oallois,  ou  le  Conle  du  Graal, 
Mons,  1866,  t.  n,  v.  2989  seq. 

3  Crestien's  von  Troyes  Contes  del  Graal.  Abdruck  der 
Handschrift  Paris,  franyais  794.  Nicht  im  Buchhandel. 


Quillaume  au  Faucon 

Si  vos  dirai  ci  la  devise 

De  sa  beautd  par  soutill  guise  : 

Que  la  dame  estoit  plus  trfis  cointe, 

Plus  tr£s  acesme'e  et  plus  jointe, 

Quant  el  est  pare"e  et  vestue, 

Que  n'est  faucons  qui  ist  de  mue, 

Ne  espervier,  ne  papegaut. 

D'une  porpre  estoit  son  bliaut, 

Et  ses  menteaus  d'or  estele*e, 

Et  si  n' estoit  mie  pele"e  10 

La  penne  qui  d' ermine  fu  ; 

D'  un  sebelin  noir  et  chenu 

Fu  li  menteax  au  col  coulez, 

Qui  n' estoit  trop  granz  ne  trop  lez. 

Et,  se  ge  onques  fis  devise 

De  beaut^  que  Dex  eiist  mise 

En  core  de  feme  ne  en  face, 

Or  me  plaist-il  que  mes  cuera  face 

Oil  j&  n'en  mentirai  de  mot. 

Quant  desli^e  fu,  si  ot  20 

Les  cheveus  tex  qui  les  veist, 

Qu'avis  li  fust,  s'estre  poist, 

Que  il  fussent  tuit  de  fin  or, 

Tant  estoit  luisant  et  sor. 

Le  front  avoit  poli  et  plain. 

Si  com  il  fust  fait  i  la  mein, 

Sorciz  brunez  et  large  entr'ueil ; 

En  la  teste  furent  li  oeil 

Clair  et  riant,  vair  et  fendu  ; 

Les  ne*s  ot  droit  et  estendu,  30 

Et  mielz  avenoit  sor  son  vis 

Le  vermeil  sor  le  blanc  asis, 

Que  le  synople  sor  1' argent ; 

Tant  par  seoit  avenanment 

Entre  le  menton  et  1'oreille ; 

Et  de  sa  bouclie  estoit  vermoille, 

Que  ele  sanbloit  passerose, 

Tant  par  estoit  vermeille  et  close 

Et  si  avoit  tant  beau  menton, 

N'en  puis  deviser  la  facon  ;  40 

Nei's  la  gorge  contreval 

Sanbloit  de  glace  ou  de  cristal, 

Taiit  par  estoit  cler  et  luisant, 

Et  desus  le  piz  de  devant 

Li  poignoient  II  mameletea 

Auteles  com  me  II  pom  metes. 

Que  vos  iroie-ge  disant  ? 

Por  enbler  cuers  et  sens  de  gent 

Fist  Diex  en  lui  passemerveille, 

Ainz  mais  nus  ne  vit  sa  pareille.  50 

Nature  qui  faite  1' avoit, 

Qui  tote  s' entente  i  metoit, 

I  ot  mise  et  tot  son  sens, 

Tant  qu'  el  en  fu  povre  lone  tens. 

De  sa  beaut^  ne  veuil  plus  dire. 


74 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


Ms.  794,  v.  1772  seq. 

E  la  pucele  vint  plus  jointe 
Plus  acesmee  e  plus  cointe 
Que  esperviers  ne  papegauz 
Ses  mantiax  fu  e  ses  bliauz 
D'  une  porpre  noir  estelee 
De  vair,  e  n'ert  mie  pelee 
La  pane  qui  d' ermine  fu  ; 
D'  un  sebelin  noir  e  chenu 
Qui  n'estoit  trop  Ions  ne  trop  lez 
Fu  li  mantiax  au  col  orlez 
E  se  je  onques  fis  devise 
En  Haute"  que  diex  eust  mise 
En  cors  de  fame  ne  an  face 
Or  me  plest  que  une  en  reface 
Ou  ge  ne  mentirai  de  mot 
Desliee  fu  e  si  ot 
Les  chevox  tels  s'estre  poist 
Que  bien  cuidast  qui  les  veist 
Que  il  fussent  tuit  de  fin  or 
Tant  estoient  luisant  e  sor 
Le  front  ot  blanc  e  haul  e  plain 
Com  se  il  fust  ovrez  de  main 
Que  de  main  d'ome  1'uevre  fust 
De  pierre  ou  d'ivoire  ou  de  fust 
Sorciz  brunez  e  large  antruel 
En  la  teste  furent  li  oel 
Riant  e  vair  e  cler  fendu 
Le  nez  ot  droit  e  estendu 
E  mialz  li  avenoit  el  vis 
Li  vermauz  sor  le  blanc  asis 
Que  li  sinoples  sor  1' argent. 
Por  embler  san  e  cuer  de  gent 
Fist  dex  de  li  passe-mervoille 
N'  onques  puis  ne  fist  sa  paroille 
Ne  devant  faite  ne  1'avoit. 

In  Guill  au  Faucon  :  11.  1-2,  5-6,  34-47,  not 
contained  in  Chretien.  LI.  1-2  merely  prefatory  ; 
1.  3  trte  added  :  dame  replaces  pucele  ;  estoit  for 
vint  •  11.  3-4  cointe-jointe  in  reverse  order,  foil. 
Mons  MS.  ;  11.  8-9  order  of  words  differs  from  Mons 
and  794  ;  1.  13  coulez  for  orlez  ;  11.  13-14  verses 
in  reverse  order  ;  1.  16  de  replaces  en  ;  1.  18  mes 
euers  replaces  une  en  ;  1.  19  oil  foil.  794,  Mons 
que  ;  1.  20  quant  inserted,  e  suppressed  ;  desliee 
foil.  794,  Mons  desfublee  ;  11.  21-22  rimes  reverse 
order  :  qui  les  veist  foil.  794,  Mons  que  I' en  deist ; 
1.  25  avoit  for  ot  •  poll  for  haut  e  plain  ;  1.  26 
word-order  changed  ;  1.  31  mielz  foil.  794,  Mons 
moult ;  sor,  794  el,  Mons  en  son  ;  1.  50  rimes 
alone  foil.  794  and  Mons. 

It  will  be  seen  that,  disregarding  orthographical 
differences,  there  are  certain  discrepancies  in  some 
details  of  the  three  texts.  The  fabliau  at  times 


follows  MS.  794,  at  times  the  Mons  MS.,  sometimes 
neither.  These  discrepancies  would  doubtless  be 
explained  had  we  access  to  the  fourteen  unpub- 
lished manuscripts  of  Li  Conies  del  Graal.* 

The  interpolated  verses  call  for  little  explana- 
tion. The  author  of  Guillaume  au  Faucon,  con- 
versant with  the  store  of  literary  banalities  of  the 
time,  and  doubtless  considering  his  model  descrip- 
tion incomplete,  borrows  elsewhere.  LI.  35-38  : 
Chev.  Ogier  12068,  bele  ot  le  boce  .  .  .  plus  ver- 
meille  que  rose  ;  Parten.  552,  Bouce  ...  a  ver- 
meillette ;  Meyer,  JbREL.,  v,  339,  li  bouche 
.  .  .  vermeille  comme  rose. — LI.  41-43  :  Yvain 
1482,  Et  nus  cristaus  ne  nule  glace  N'est  si  clere  ; 
Bartsch  :  Chr,  prov,  267,  la  gola  blanca  plus  que 
neus. — LI.  44-46  :  Chev.  Ogier  12068,  les  mame- 
lettes  li  aloient  pognant  com  dus  pomes  ;  Hist.  litt. 
xxvi,  338,  mamelettes  durettes  et  poignans.8 

This  borrowing,  hitherto  unnoticed,  is  both  in- 
teresting and  instructive  in  view  of  the  importance 
of  the  two  medieval  poems.  It  casts  additional 
light  upon  the  esteem  in  which  Chretien's  por- 
traitures were  held  by  his  contemporaries,  an 
esteem  that  bordered  upon  worship  in  subsequent 
literature.6  The  fabliau  Guillaume  au  Faucon 
has  been  judged  "le  chef-d'oeuvre,  justement 
celeb  re,  de  ces  recits  d' amours  chevaleresques."7 

SHIRLEY  GALE  PATTERSON. 

University  of  Chicago. 


A   REPROOF   TO  LYDGATE 

In  the  manuscript  Fairfax  16  of  the  Bodleian 
Library  at  Oxford,  a  handsome  vellum  volume 
containing  many  Chaucer-poems  and  dated  1450, 

*  J.  L.  Weston  :  The  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  London, 
1906,  p.  27. 

6  Further  examples  of  such  stock  epithets  and  descrip- 
tions may  be  found  in  the  following  works  ;  Jean  Lou- 
bier,  Das  Ideal  der  mdnnlichen  Schb'nheit  bei  den  altfran. 
Dichtern  des  xii.  u,  xiii.  Jahrh.  Diss.  Halle,  1890. — K. 
Renier,  U  tipo  estetico  della  donna  nel  medioevo.  Ancona, 
1881 . — J.  Houdoy,  La  beaute  desfemmes  dans  la  litt.  et  dans 
Part  du  xiie  au  xvie  siecle.  Paris,  1896. 

6  E.  Langlois,  Origines  et  Sources  du  Roman  de  la  Rose. 
Paris,  1891,  passim. 

''Hist.  litt.t  xxin,  181. 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


75 


there  is  found  an  anonymous  collection  of  short 
love-poems,  copied  almost  continuously  and  ap- 
parently forming  a  kind  of  sequence.  They  are 
rubricked  Balade,  Compleynt,  Lettyr,  etc.,  and 
contain  frequent  allusions  to  "the  flower"  of 
much  the  same  sort  as  the  Deschamps  poems 
known  to  Chaucer  and  paralleled  by  him  in  the 
prologue  to  the  Legend  of  Good  Women.  One  of 
these  brief  poems,  of  three  seven-line  stanzas, 
begins  ' '  The  tyme  so  long  the  payn  ay  inor  and 
more,"  reminding  us  of  the  opening  line  of  the 
Parlement  of  FouleS  ;  it  is  closely  followed  by 
another  ' '  Compleynt ' '  of  five  stanzas,  and  this 
by  the  poem  here  printed.  There  is  no  separating 
title  between  our  poem  and  that  preceding,  merely 
a  space  of  three  lines  with  a  horizontal  mark.  It 
is  possible  that  the  Lydgate-passages  censured  in 
the  poem  are  those  following  the  tragedies  of  Her- 
cules and  of  Samson,  in  Book  I  of  the  Fall  of 
Princes,  for  these  same  passages,  when  transcribed 
in  MS.  Harley  2251,  occasioned  the  scribe  a  simi- 
lar indignation.  We  find  on  the  margins  of  that 
MS. — "Be  pees  I  bidde  yow,"  "Ye  wil  be 
shent,"  "Ye  haue  no  cause  to  say  so,"  "Ye 
gete  yow  no  thank,"  "Be  pees  or  I  wil  rende 
this  leef  out  of  your  book,"  "  There  is  no  good 
woman  that  wil  be  wroth  ne  take  no  quarell 
agenst  this  booke  as  I  suppose." 

[MS.  Fairfax  16,  Bibl.  Bodl.,  fol.  325b.] 

1 

Myn  hert  ys  set  and  all  myn  hole  entent 

To  serve  this  flour  in  my  most  humble  wyse 

As  faythfully  as  can  be  thought  or  ment 

Wyth  out  feynyng  or  slouthe  in  my  seruyse 

ffor  wytt  ye  wele  yt  ys  a  paradyse  5 

To  se  this  flour  when  yt  bygyn  to  sprede 

Wyth  colours  fressh  ennewyd  white  and  rede 


And  for  the  fayth  I  owe  vn  to  thys  flour 

I  must  of  reson  do  my  obseruaunce 

To  flours  all  bothe  now  and  euery  our  10 

Syth  fortune  lyst  that  yt  shuld  be  my  chaunce 

If  that  I  couthe  do  seruyse  or  plesaunce 

Thus  am  I  set  and  shall  be  tyll  I  sterue 

And  for  o  flour  all  othyr  for  to  serue 


So  wolde  god  that  my  symple  connyng  15 

Ware  sufficiaunt  this  goodly  flour  to  prayse 
ffor  as  to  me  ys  non  so  ryche  a  thyng 


That  able  were  this  flour  to  countirpayse 

O  noble  chaucer  passyd  ben  thy  dayse 

Off  poetrye  ynamyd  worthyest  20 

And  of  makyng  in  alle  othir  days  the  best 


Now  tliou  art  go  /  thyn  helpe  I  may  not  haue 

Wherfor  to  god  I  pray  ryght  specially 

Syth  thou  art  dede  and  buryde  in  thy  graue 

That  on  thy  sowle  hym  lyst  to  haue  mercy  25 

And  to  the  monke  of  bury  now  speke  I 

ffor  thy  connyng  ys  syche  and  eke  thy  grace 

After  chaucer  to  occupye  his  place 


Besechyng  the  my  penne  enlumyne 

This  flour  to  prayse  as  I  before  haue  ment  30 

And  of  these  lettyrs  let  thy  colours  shyne 

This  byll  to  forthir  after  myn  entent 

ffor  glad  am  I  that  fortune  lyst  assent 

So  to  ordeyn  that  yt  shuld  be  myn  vre 

The  flours  to  chese  as  by  myn  aventure  35 

6 

Wher  as  ye  say  that  loue  ys  but  dotage 

Of  verey  reson  that  may  not  be  trew 

ffor  euery  man  that  hath  a  good  corage 

Must  loner  be  thys  wold  I  that  ye  knew 

Who  louyth  wele  all  vertu  will  hym  sew  40 

Wherfor  I  rede  and  counsail  yow  ezpresse 

As  for  thys  mater  take  non  heuynesse 


These  clerkys  wyse  ye  say  were  brought  full  lowe 

And  mad  full  tame  for  alle  tbair  sotelte 

Now  am  I  glad  yt  shall  ryght  wele  be  know  45 

That  loue  ys  of  so  grete  autoryte 

Wherfor  I  lat  yow  wyt  as  semeth  me 

It  is  your  part  in  euery  maner  wyse 

Of  trew  louers  to  forther  the  seruyse 

8 

And  of  women  ye  say  ryght  as  ye  lyst  50 

That  trouth  in  hem  may  but  awhile  endure 

And  counsail  eke  that  men  shuld  hem  not  tryst 

And  how  they  be  vnstedfast  of  nature 

What  causeth  this  for  euery  creature 

That  ys  gylty  and  knowyth  thaym  self  coulpable       55 

Demyth  alle  other  thair  case  semblable 


And  be  your  bokys  I  put  case  that  ye  knewe 

Mych  of  this  mater  which  that  ye  haue  meuyd 

Yit  god  defende  that  euery  thing  were  trew 

That  clerkes  wryte  for  then  myght  thys  be  preuyd    60 

That  ye  haue  sayd  which  wyll  not  be  byleuyd 

I  late  yow  wyt  for  trysteth  verely 

In  your  conseyt  yt  is  an  erssy 


76 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[  Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


10 

A  fye  for  schame  O  thou  envyous  man 

Thynk  whens  thou  came  and  whider  to  rapayr          65 

Hastow  not  sayd  eke  that  these  women  can 

Laugh  and  loue  nat  parde  yt  is  not  fair 

Thy  corupt  speche  enfectyth  alle  the  air 

Knoke  on  thy  brest  repent  now  and  euer 

Ayen  therwyth  and  say  thou  saydyst  yt  neuer  70 

11 

Thynk  fully  this  and  hold  yt  for  no  fable 

That  fayth  in  women  hath  his  dwellyng  place 

ffor  out  of  her  cam  nought  that  was  vnable 

Saf  man  that  can  not  well  say  in  no  place 

O  thou  vnhappy  man  go  hyde  thy  face  75 

The  court  ys  set  thy  falshed  is  tryed 

Wythdraw  I  rede  for  now  thou  art  aspyed 

12 

If  thou  be  wyse  yit  do  this  after  me 

Be  not  to  hasty  com  not  in  presence 

Lat  thyn  attournay  sew  and  speke  for  the  80 

Loke  yf  he  can  escuse  thy  necglygence 

And  forther  more  yit  must  thou  recompence 

ffor  alle  that  euer  thou  hast  sayde  byfore 

Haue  mynde  of  this  for  now  I  wryte  no  more. 

In  lines  3  and  30  the  MS.  reads  os  instead  of  as 
a  common  trick  with  the  Fairfax  scribe.  In  line  5 
the  MS.  reads  the  instead  of  ye,  and  in  line  6  thais 
instead  of  this.  In  line  14  to  is  omitted.  In  line 
58  the  MS.  reads  myned  instead  of  meuyd,  and  in 
65  thorn  instead  of  thou,  Line  66  reads  Hastow 
thou  not — etc.  Lines  79,  80,  81  are  in  the  MS. 
arranged  80,  81,  79,  with  scribal  marks  for  trans- 
position. 

ELEANOR  PRESCOTT  HAMMOND. 

Chicago,  HI. 


A  NOTE  ON  CHAUCER'S  PRONUN- 
CIATION  OF  ot,  ay,  ei,  ey 

Scholars  now  generally  hold  that  Chaucer  iden- 
tified the  diphthongs  ai,  ay,  ei,  ey,  and  gave  them 
the  sound  of,  approximately,  $1.  Jespersen,  in  his 
Modern  English  Grammar,  even  states  as  a  fact 
that  the  Middle  English  diphthong  had  the  value 
of  oei.  But  no  one  has  adduced  adequate  proof 
that  his  theory  is  reasonable  ;  and  no  one,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  has  adequately  discussed  Chau- 
cer's pronunciation  from  the  derivative  or  Old 


English  dialect  point  of  view.     This  note,  there- 
fore, though  obvious,  may  perhaps  be  justified. 

By  classifying  the  rime- words,  and  referring  to 
the  rime-indexes,  any  one  can  see  that  Chaucer 
made  no  distinction  between  ay,  ai,  ei,  ey,  what- 
ever the  source  ;  and  he  must,  therefore,  have 
given  them  almost  the  same  pronunciation.  This 
can  be  established  as  $i  or  closer,  if  we  grant,  not 
unreasonably,  the  following  premises  :  first,  that 
the  Old  English  signs,  ce,  e,  e,  stood  for  the 
vowel  sounds  we  now  find  in  man,  met,  and  N. 
H.  G.  Reh,  respectively  ;  second,  that  when  a 
vowel  had  started  on  a  cycle  of  change,  it  devel- 
oped normally  in  this  cyclic  direction,  though  of 
course  with  different  velocities  in  different  dis- 
tricts, e.  g.,  that  ce%  >  cej  >  cei  >  ei  >  ei,  rather 
than  that,  as  Ellis,  Skeat,  and  Sweet,  seem  to  as- 
sume, CB5  >  cej  >  ai  (=  aye,  aye,  sir  /)>  ai  >  cei 
>  etc. ;  third,  that  Chaucer  derived  his  words, 
except  when  there  is  proof  otherwise,  through  the 
medium  of  the  Mercian  dialect.  So  I  should 
prefer  to  take  seyde  as  coming  from  Merc,  segde 
rather  than  W.  S.  scegde,  and  teyd  as  from  Kent. 
teid  or  £ej(e)d  rather  than  W.  S.  ty%cdt 

The  following  words,  therefore,  beginning  in 
Mercian  with  the  sound  $%,  must  have  had  in 
Chaucer's  works  the  sound  eji  ;  or  even  a  closer 
one,  for  g  would  tend  to  become  closer  as 
5  >./>  i.  The  latter  view  finds  support  in  the 
general  tendency  of  English  vowels  to  become 
higher  (and  closer),  a  tendency  which  Jespersen 
treats  fully  in  his  Mod.  Eng.  Grammar.  The 
words  I  refer  to  as  coming  from  Merc,  words  hav- 
ing -eg-  are  :  day,  lay,  may,  ey ;  nayl,  sayd,  slayn, 
ayeyn  and  ageyn,  brayn,  hail,  breyde,  mayde,  tayl, 
fain,  fair,  naille. 

With  the  preceding  words  should  be  taken  this 
class  of  words,  which  had  a  diphthong  that  must 
by  derivation  have  been  closer  than  ei,  for  in  all 
the  O.  E.  dialects  words  of  this  class  were  written 
with  -eg,  not  ceg;  they  are  :  ayleth,  freyne,  y-lain, 
leith,  leyd,  leye,  pley,  pleye,  reyn,  reyne,  sail, 
seyle,  seye,  y-seyn,  seyne,  way. 

Chaucer  undoubtedly  gave  the  following  also  a 
close  sound,  since  they  were  strongly  palatalized  in 
Old  English,  and  were  soon  after  Chaucer's  time 
close  diphthongs,  from  the  influence  of  the  fol- 
lowing c  or  r).  These  are  :  bleynt,  dreynte,  queynt, 
and  yqueynt,  ymeynd,  yspreynd. 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


77 


Now,  there  are  a  few  words  in  Chaucer  of 
which  the  form  can  be  explained  only  by  a  Kent- 
ish origin.  And  two  of  them  had  vowels  which 
were  certainly  close  in  Kentish,  namely,  *dre%e, 
W.  S.  dry^e  and  te&(e}d,  W.  S.  iy^ed.  Every 
probability  therefore  favors  a  close  sound  for 
Chaucer's  dreye,  teyd,  beye,  and  reye. 

Riming  with  these,  moreover,  are  a  few  words 
that  had  a  very  close  sound  throughout  the  O.  E. 
district,  as  is  indicated  by  the  spelling,  -£5-,  -eoj- 
or  -le-?,.  Unless  subject  to  some  hitherto  unnoted 
perversion,  then,  wreye,  tweye,  tweyn,  hey,  and 
deye  must  have  had  a  close  sound  in  Middle  Eng- 
lish. The  fact  that  words  of  this  class  rime  with 
multiplye,  Emelye,  dye,  crye,  vilanye,  etc.,  is 
another  indication  of  a  close  pronunciation.  A 
close  quality  is  also  indicated  by  variant  spellings 
like  eese  for  eyse,  mischef  for  miseheif,  heere  for 
heyre. 

Words  not  only  of  Old  English  but  of  Scandi- 
navian derivation  as  well,  are  far  more  reasonably 
explained  with  the  sound  in  M.  E.  approximately 
of  they  than  with  the  sound  cd  or  $i  usually 
ascribed  to  them.  The  words  ay,  bayte,  nay, 
rayse,  swayn,  teyne,  they,  sleighte,  biwayle  could 
not  very  well  have  had  an  open  sound  in  Middle 
English. 

The  evidence,  therefore,  from  the  derivation  of 
such  words  as  day,  nay  I,  ayleth,  bleynt,  dreye, 
biwreye,  tweyn,  bayte,  sleighte,  is  fairly  strong  that 
Chaucer  gave  the  diphthongs  ai,  ay,  ei,  ey  a  sound 
between  that  of  $i  and  ei,  a  pronunciation  very 
possibly,  in  view  of  the  recorded  pronunciations 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  not  so  close  as  that  of 
N.  E.  they. 

C.  H.  FOSTER. 

U.  S.  Naval  Academy. 


NOTES  ON  DE  BOER'S  EDITION  OF 
PHIL  OMEN  A 

I 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  incor- 
rectness of  the  statement  made  by  the  editor  of 
Philomena  in  regard  to  the  pleonastic  use  *  of  the 

lZRPh.,  1909,  pp.  587-589. 


particle  en  by  Chretien  de  Troyes.  M.  de  Boer 
also  lays  particular  stress  upon  the  use  *  in  Philo- 
mena, 1.  196,  of  the  personal  pronoun 'for  the 
reflexive  : 

"  Des  autors  sot  et  de  grameire 
Et  sot  bien  feire  vers  et  letre 
Et,  quant  li  plot,  li  antremetre 
Et  del  Bautier  et  de  la  lire." 

11.  194-197. 

This  he  considers  an  archaism,  and  states  *  that 
Chretien  uses  it  only  once,  in  Erec,  2670. 6 

There  is,  however,  at  least  one  example  in 
Lancelot.  The  queen  has  just  heard  the  report 
of  Lancelot's  death,  and  the  poet  says  : 

"Tantost  se  lieve  mout  dolante 
De  la  table,  si  se  demante 
Si  que  nus  ne  1'ot  ne  eseoute. 
De  li  ocirre  est  si  estoute 
Que  soyant  se  prant  a  la  gole." 

11.  4195-99. 

It  would  be  strange  if  Chretien  never,  after  he 
wrote  Erec,  used  the  tonic  personal  pronoun  for 
the  reflexive  in  the  third  person,  when  examples 
of  this  use  may  be  found  up  to  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth  century.8  It  was  the  tonic  reflexive  that 
was  so  replaced.  The  tonic  form  of  the  pronoun 
might  precede  or  follow  the  governing  infinitive. 
In  Yvain,  Chretien  writes  : 


"Mes  teus  consoille  bien  autrui, 
Qui  ne  savroit  conseillier  lui." 


11.  2533-34. 


A  few  lines  below  we  find  : 


Ne  leira  que  congie"  ne  praingne 
De  retorner  soi  an  Bretaingne. 

11.  2545-46. 

In  the  first  of  these  two  cases,  the  lui  is  no 
doubt  used  because  of  its  juxtaposition  with  au- 
trui, but  even  to-day  we  should  say  :  gui  ne  sau- 
rait  se  conseiller  lui-meme.  In  Chretien,  lui  must 
be  construed  as  object  of  the  infinitive  and  as  re- 
placing, or,  if  you  will,  repeating  emphatically 
the  reflexive  understood,  even  tho  now  lui-meme 

1  Philomena,  e*d.  crit.  par  C.  de  Boer,  Paris,  1909,  pp. 
Ixix,  cvi. 

*J.  «.,  the  tonic  personal  pronoun.  De  Boer  fails  to 
make  this  necessary  qualification. 

4  P.  lix.  6  Correct  to  2669. 

8  Cf.  "  s'ilz  eussent  tire*  tout  droit  sans  eulx  faire  ouyr," 
Commines,  n,  12. 


78 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


would  be  construed  as  a  nominative.  The  fact  is 
that  the  struggle  which,  after  prepositions,7  oc- 
curred between  the  tonic  third  person  reflexive 
and  personal  pronouns  is  evidenced  also  when  the 
pronoun  was  in  direct  connection  with  the  verb. 

With  prepositions  the  struggle  has  continued 
to  the  present,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  reflexive, 
while  with  the  verb  the  atonic  reflexive  became 
indispensable  before  classic  times,  whether  or  not 
the  tonic  personal  or  reflexive  pronoun  with  meme 
were  added  for  emphasis. 

II 

Of  the  verb  aler,  the  editor  says8:  "vet  au 
vers  860  (:  brefy.  La  forme  va  n'est  pas  attested 
par  les  rimes  ;  au  vers  91,  quatre  manuscrits  la 
donnent.  Elle  est  rare  chez  Chretien."  Vet  is 
therefore  put  in  the  text  in  1.  91. 

In  Lancelot,  the  form  va  is  found  within  lines 
164,  253,  723,  1038,  2390,  3769,  4135  ;  in  lines 
131,  686,  941,  2324,  4038,  4175,  4588,  4849, 
5905,  6125,  va  stands  in  rime.  On  the  other 
hand,  vet  is  not  found  in  rime  at  all.  This  would 
seem  to  indicate  clearly  that  vet  was  becoming  ob- 
solete in  Chretien's  time.  The  fact  that  vet  :  bret 
is  found  in  the  Philomena  would  not  necessarily 
prevent  the  poet  from  using  va  in  verse  91.  When 
Kipling  writes  in  Mulholland's  Contract,  "  For  I 
am  in  charge  of  the  lower  deck  with  all  that  doth 
belong, ' '  no  one  would  pretend  that  he  might  not 
have  written  ' '  belongs ' '  instead  of  ' ' doth  belong ' ' 
in  another  place  in  the  same  poem. 

in 

In  the  note  to  line  451,  the  editor  finds  Le 
Coultre  wrong  in  refusing  to  put  the  atonic  pro- 
noun an  after  the  verb,  and  adds  :  ' '  Les  exern- 
ples  de  an  suivant  le  verbe  aler  sont  frequents 

7  "  Et  d'autre  part  armez  estoit 

Uns  chevaliers  qui  le  gardoit, 

S'ot  une  dameisele  o  soi 

Venue  sor  un  palefroi."          Lane.,  735-38. 

(Cf.  Yvain,  2454;  Lane.,  6029.) 

"  La  dameisele  qui  o  li 
Le  chevalier  ainene"  ot 
Les  menaces  antant  et  ot."  Lane.,  898-900. 

(Cf.  Cliges,  201-3  ;  Yvain,  3354  ;   Lane.,  1281-82  ;  Yvain, 
2192-93. ) 

8  P.  xxxv. 


dans  Chretien."    He  therefore    makes  the  text 

read  : 

"Don  fust  mout  sages  Tereus 
S'il  s'an  vosist  retreire  ansus 
Et  raler  s'an  sanz  la  pucele." 

Chretien  rarely  uses  any  atonic  pronoun  com- 
plement after  the  verb  except  with  the  imperative 
affirmative  unsupported,  and  in  direct  questions, 
introduced  by  the  verb.  Outside  of  such  instances, 
there  is  no  case  in  Lancelot,  Cliges,  or  Yvain,  and 
but  one  in  Erec,  in  which  it  may  be  properly  said 
that  an  or  s'an  follows  the  verb  aler.  The  cases 
in  which  an  or  s'an  seem  to  follow  aler  arise  from 
inversion. 

"  Est-ce  par  ire  ou  par  despit," 
Fet  li  rois,  "  qu'aler  an  volez  ?  "     Lane.,  106. 
Si  con  la  rote  aler  an  virent.  Lane.,  599. 

Mes  ne  puet  tant  qu'aler  s'an  puisse. 

Yvain,  3037. 

Tant  que  il  et  ses  lions  furent 
Gari  et  que  raler  s'an  durent.         Yvain,  4702. 

"  Des  vaslez  que  aler  an  voient."        Cliges,  257. 
"Qu'aler  s'an  viaut  an  son  pa'is."      Erec,  2280. 

In  all  these  cases  the  an  belongs  with  the  prin- 
cipal verb,  just  as  it  does  in  : 

"Se  vos  mener  m'an  osiiez."  Lane.,  1309. 

"  Quant  la  bonte  prise  an  avroie."  Lane.,  2496. 

The  only  case  in  which  s'an  (I  find  no  case  of  an) 
can  properly  be  said  to  follow  aler,  is  in  Erec,  233  : 

"  Kala  s'an  ;  qu'il  n'i  ot  plus  fet." 

This  single  example  might  justify  the  editor  in 
keeping  in  the  text  of  Philomena,  "  Et  raler  s'an 
sanz  la  pucele, "  if  it  can  be  conceived  that  Chr6- 
tien  ever  wrote  so  uneuphonious  a  verse. 


University  of  Wisconsin. 


LUCY  M.  GAY. 


THE  RELATION  OF  A  MIDSUMMER 

NIGHT'S  DREAM  TO  ROMEO 

AND  JULIET 

Various  parallels  in  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  A 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream  tend  to  support  the 
theory  of  Mr.  Sidney  Lee,  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke, 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


79 


and  others  that  the  traditional  chronology  which 
puts  the  Dream  first  is  untenable.  It  is  the  pur- 
pose of  this  paper  to  show  that  wherever  parallels 
exist,  the  debt  is  probably  from  the  Dream  to 
Romeo  amd  Juliet,  and  that  a  consideration  of  the 
spirit  of  the  two  plays,  of  the  different  attitudes 
towards  love  and  life  which  they  present,  leads  us 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  a  close  connection 
between  the  two,  and  that  the  Dream  is  the  natural 
reaction  of  Shakespeare's  mind  from  Romeo  and 
Juliet. 

It  will  be  unnecessary  in  this  paper  to  present 
all  the  evidence  bearing  on  the  dates  of  composi- 
tion of  the  two  plays.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  first  version  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  appeared 
about  1591.  The  date  of  the  first  version  of  the 
Dream  is  more  problematical.  The  only  bit  of 
external  evidence  is  the  mention  of  the  play  in 
Francis  Meres's  Palladia  Tamia  in  1598,  but  the 
strongest  bit  of  internal  evidence — the  supposed 
reference  to  the  death  of  Robert  Greene,  in  Act 
v,  i,  52-3  : 

The  thrice  three  Muses  mourning  for  the  death 
Of  Learning,  late  deceased  in  beggary — 

would  fix  the  date  at  1592-3. 

Assuming,  then,  that  the  Dream  was  written 
soon,  perhaps  immediately,  after  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  let  us  see  if  a  comparative  study  of  the 
two  plays  will  not  support  our  hypothesis. 

Awake  the  pert  and  nimble  spirit  of  mirth, 
Turn  melancholy  forth  to  funerals 

says  Theseus  in  the  first  scene  of  the  Dream,  and 
later  in  the  first  scene  of  Act  v  : 

Lovers  and  madmen  have  such  seething  brains, 
Such  shaping  fantasies,  that  apprehend 
More  than  cool  reason  ever  comprehends. 
The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet 
Are  of  imagination  all  compact. 

These  two  speeches  of  Theseus,  to  whom  Shake- 
speare has  given  much  of  his  own  clear-eyed  se- 
renity and  benignity,  are,  it  seems  to  me,  sig- 
nificant manifestations  of  the  poet's  own  mental 
attitude  when  he  created  the  Dream.  He  has 
just  finished  a  passionate,  romantic  tragedy  of 
love  ;  in  this  tragedy  he  has  been  led  into  some- 
what excessive  emotionalism  —certainly  more  so 
than  in  any  other  play — his  hero-lover  has  at 
times  been  "unseemly  woman  in  a  seeming  man, 


and  ill-beseeming  beast  in  seeming  both  "  ;  "  cool 
reason,"  serenity  and^ poise  have  had  no  effect 
upon  the  "  seething  brain  "  of  the  lover.  Now 
Shakespeare's  own  brain  is  not  normally  a  seeth- 
ing one,  his  "  blood  and  judgment  are  well  com- 
mingled"; true,  he  is  not  a  Friar  Laurence  nor 
even  a  Theseus,  but  neither  is  he  a  Romeo.  And 
now  as  he  looks  at  his  tragedy  of  love,  what  im- 
pression does  it  make  upon  him  ?  Be  it  remem- 
bered that  we  are  now  dealing  with  the  young 
man,  Shakespeare,  not  with  the  man  who,  out  of 
the  storm  and  stress  of  his  soul,  evolved  a  Ham- 
let, an  Othello,  a  Lear,  or  a  Macbeth,  but  with 
the  joyous,  exuberant,  deep-souled,  clear-eyed 
poet  of  the  early  comedies.  Is  it  not  natural 
that  to  him,  far  more  than  to  any  one  else,  the 
emotionalism  and  sentimentalism  of  his  tragedy  «• 
should  seem  a  trifle  exaggerated  and  ridiculous, 
and  the  tragic  fate  of  the  lovers  morbidly  gloomy  ? 
And  so,  shaking  himself  free  of  romantic  ideals  of 
love,  he  somewhat  quizzically  allies  lovers,  luna- 
tics, and  poets ;  shows  us  in  Theseus  and  Hippolyta 
the  calm  and  serene  love  of  middle  age ;  represents 
the  young,  romantic  lovers  (the  men,  at  least)  as 
taking  themselves  very  seriously,  but  in  reality 
being  ruled  entirely  by  the  fairies,  one  minute 
suffering  agonies  of  love  for  one  woman,  the  next 
for  another ;  love  a  mere  madness,  entirely  under 
the  control  of  the  fairies  (be  it  noted  that  the 
magic  juice  has  permanent  effect  upon  Demetrius) ; 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  play  strikes  the  key- 
note of  it  all  : 

Awake  the  pert  and  nimble  spirit  of  mirth, 
Turn  melancholy  forth. 

The  similarities  between  the  situation  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Dream  and  the  main  situation  in 
Romeo  and  Juliet  are  obvious,  and  it  seems  far 
more  probable  that  Shakespeare  borrowed  and 
condensed  material  from  Romeo  and  Juliet,  for 
mere  mechanical  purposes  here,  than  that  he 
developed  a  great  tragic  plot  from  this  simple 
situation  in  which  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
particularly  interested.  Detailed  comparison  of 
the  two  situations,  giving  support  to  this  theory, 
follows. 

Lysander  is  accused  by  Egeus,  the  father  of  his 
lady,  Hermia,  of  making  love  much  in  Romeo's 
manner  : 


80 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


This  man  hath  bewitch' d  the  bosom  of  my  child : 
Thou,  thou,  Lysander,  thou  hast  given  her  rimes, 
And  interchanged  love-tokens  with  my  child  : 
Thou  hast  by  moonlight  at  her  window  sung. 

Egeus  is  not  unlike  Capulet,  and  makes  similar 
speeches,  less  brutal  to  be  sure,  for  brutality  would 
not  sort  with  the  nimble  mirth  of  this  comedy,  but 
no  less  tyrannical.  Compare,  for  example,  Capu- 
let's  words  to  Juliet  (in,  v,  193-4)  with  Egeus' s 
to  Hermia  (i,  i,  42-4)  : 

Capulet :  An  you  be  mine,  I'll  give  you  to  my  friend  ; 

An  you  be  not,  hang,  beg,  starve,  die  in  the 

streets. 
and 

Egeus :  As  she  is  mine,  I  may  dispose  of  her  : 

Which  shall  be  either  to  this  gentleman 
Or  to  her  death. 

When  Lysander  and  Hermia  are  left  alone  they 
indulge  in  a  long  and  somewhat  artificial  com- 
plaint of  love.  Lysander  would  seem  to  have 
been  reading  Romeo  and  Juliet,  or  at  least  some 
similar  tale,  for  he  says  : 

Ay  me  !  for  aught  that  I  could  ever  read, 

Could  ever  hear  by  tale  or  history, 

The  course  of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth — 

and  then  (the  first  in  the  series  of  hindrances  in 
the  course  of  true  love  and  evidently  a  reminis- 
cence of  Romeo  and  Juliet) : 

For  either  it  was  different  in  blood. 

Lysander  proceeds,  still  keeping  Romeo  and  Juliet 
in  mind,  and  borrowing  a  very  effective  simile 
from  Juliet  : 

Or,  if  there  were  a  sympathy  in  choice, 
War,  death,  or  sickness  did  lay  siege  to  it, 
Making  it  momentany  as  a  sound, 
Swift  as  a  shadow,  short  as  any  dream  ; 
Brief  as  the  lightning  in  the  collied  night, 
That,  in  a  spleen,  unfolds  both  heaven  and  earth, 
And  ere  a  man  hath  power  to  say  '  Behold  ! ' 
The  jaws  of  darkness  do  devour  it  up: 
So  quick  bright  things  come  to  confusion. 

Compare  with  this  R.  and  J.,  n,  ii,  117-120  : 

I  have  no  joy  of  this  contract  tonight 
It  is  too  rash,  too  unadvised,  too  sudden, 
Too  like  the  lightning,  which  doth  cease  to  be 
Ere  one  can  say  '  It  lightens.' 

The  only  thing  in  Romeo  and  Juliet  which 
seems  to  me  clearly  to  be  borrowed  from  the 
Dream  is  Mercutio's  description  of  Queen  Mab. 


It  has  the  exquisite  delicacy  and  daintiness  of  the 
descriptive  passages  of  the  Dream,  but  it  is  not  an 
integral  part  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  there  is  no 
particular  reason  why,  in  this  play,  Shakespeare 
should  be  thinking  of  fairies  or  fairy-land.  More- 
over, if  he  had  already  conceived  and  created 
Queen  Mab  when  he  wrote  the  Dream,  would  he 
not  probably  have  made  some  reference  to  her 
in  the  fairy  scenes  of  the  latter  ?  This  is  by  no 
means,  however,  an  unsurmountable  difficulty  in 
the  establishment  of  our  main  thesis,  for  the  first 
edition  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  was  published  after 
the  composition  of  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 
and  the  very  episodic  nature  of  the  Queen  Mab 
speech  makes  it  quite  possible  that  it  was  a  late 
addition. 

' '  The  tedious,  brief  scene  of  Pyramus  and 
Thisbe"  is,  I  think,  unquestionably  a  burlesque 
not  only  of  the  romantic  tragedy  of  love  in  gen- 
eral, but  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  in  particular.  The 
two  catastrophes  are  almost  identical,  and  it  seems 
hardly  probable  that  any  dramatist  would  write 
his  burlesque  first  and  his  serious  play  afterward. 
May  it  not  be,  also,  that  "  Wall "  and  "  Moon  " 
are  the  result  of  Shakespeare's  own  difficulties  in 
presenting  on  the  stage  the  great  Balcony-scene 
in  Romeo  and  Juliet  ? 

There  are  many  similarities  of  style  and  expres- 
sion in  the  two  plays  which  have  no  bearing  upon 
our  main  point.  For  example,  Helena's  descrip- 
tion of  love  and  its  workings,  at  the  end  of  Act  i, 
sc.  i,  is  in  the  same  tone  as  Romeo's  definition  of 
love  (i,  i,  196-200);  Hermia's  vow  to  Lysander 
(i,  i,  169-178,  particularly  169-172)  is  an  echo 
of  Mercutio's  conjuration  of  Romeo  (11,  i,  17-21); 
Bottom's  "O  grim-looked  night"  (v,  i,  171-3) 
and  the  Nurse's  "O  woeful  day"  (iv,  v,  49-54) 
are  cut  from  the  same  piece.  Another  rather 
curious  comparison,  which  is  of  no  significance 
except  as  it  illustrates  a  kind  of  youthful  clever- 
ness, is  that  of  Quince's  prologue  (v,  i,  108-117) 
where  by  refusing  to  ' '  stand  upon  points  ' '  he  says 
the  exact  opposite  of  what  he  means,  and  Juliet's 
conscious  and  less  artistic  equivocation  and  am- 
biguity in  her  conversation  with  her  mother  about 
Tybalt  and  Romeo  (in.  v,  84-103). 


Yale  College. 


SAMUEL  B.  HEMINGWAY. 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


81 


THE  DIRECTION  OF  THOUGHT  IN  THE 
WARTBURGLIEDER  OF  1817 

On  the  18th  of  October,  1817,  the  Burschen- 
schaft  of  Jena  published  a  small  collection  of 
gongs  entitled,  Lieder  von  Deutschlands  Burschen 
zu  singen  auf  der  Wartburg  am  18ten  Oktober  des 
Reformationsjubeljahres  1817.  Numerous  copies 
of  the  booklet  were  distributed  on  the  market- 
square  of  Eisenach  among  the  assembled  students 
who  had  come  from  near  and  far  to  celebrate 

1)  the   three-hundredth  anniversary  of  the  Re- 

formation, 

2)  the  fourth  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Leipzig, 

3)  the  first  interstate  gathering  of  German  stu- 

dents. 

Exclusive  of  two  poems  by  Luther  and  two  by 
Ernst  Moritz  Arndt,  the  collection  contains  twelve 
contributions  by  student-poets,  representing  about 
as  many  German  Protestant  universities.  The 
raison  d'etre  of  these  songs  is  to  be  found  in  the 
request  of  the  Jena  Burschenschaft  "  cliesen  Tag 
in  einem  Gesang  nach  einer  bekannten  "Weise  zu 
verherrlichen, "  which  concluded  their  letter  of 
invitation  to  the  various  sister-corporations  to  take 
part  in  the  Wartburg-festival.1 

The  keynote  of  the  songs  accords  with  the 
three-fold  purpose  of  the  festival,  but  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  how  blindly  the  young  poets  groped 
about  for  the  expression  of  a  uniting  principle 
upon  which  they  might  base  the  spirit  of  the 
celebration. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  one  of  them  was  suc- 
cessful, if  for  no  other  reason,  because  no  such 
principle  existed.  Their  futile  attempts,  how- 
ever, resulted  in  a,  possibly  unconscious,  expres- 
sion of  thought  direction  which  reflects  the  vaguely 
felt  political  undercurrent,  characteristic  of  the 
early  Burschenschaften. 

While  it  is  generally  admitted  that  such  polit- 
ical undercurrent  actually  existed,  particularly 
among  the  extremists,  no  document  could  be  found 
that  exhibits  this  with  more  conclusive  evidence 
than  the  Wartburglieder.  The  reason  is  not  far 
to  seek.  German  democracy,  as  exemplified  in 

1  Cf.  Keil,  Qeschichte  des  Jenaischen  Studentenhbens. 
Leipzig,  1858,  p.  380. 


the  student  organizations  of  1815  and  thereafter, 
was  the  child  of  abstraction  and,  unlike  that  of 
England,  was  born  in  the  minds  of  the  learned.1 
Fichte,  Arndt,  Schleiermacher,  and  Jahn  were 
the  pioneers  of  its  tenets.  From  the  professor's 
desk,  from  the  pulpit,  from  the  poet's  pen,  and 
from  the  ' '  Turnplatz, ' '  it  found  its  way  into 
academic  life  where  for  the  first  time  it  took 
concrete  form.  From  there — such  was  the  hope 
of  the  Burschcnschafter — it  would  eventually  find 
admittance  to  the  masses  of  the  people. 

The  Burschenschaften,  then,  were  strictly 
speaking  no  end  in  themselves  but  rather  a 
means  to  an  end.  That  their  activity  was  con- 
fessedly directed  against  the  so-called  Lands- 
mannschaften  and  did  not  immediately  reach 
out  into  political  life  supports  this  viewpoint,  for 
the  Landsmannschaften  were  the  very  incarnations 
of  a  disrupted,  factional,  and  undemocratic  spirit, 
whose  effectual  resistance  to  the  new  democratic 
ideals  limited  the  Burschenschaften  to  reformatory 
efforts  within  the  academic  sphere. 

Yet,  the  ' '  Vaterlandsgedanke ' '  was  ever 
present.  It  was  incorporated  into  their  consti- 
tutions and  preambles,  it  was  metaphorically 
applied  in  their  methods  of  organization,  it  was 
voiced  in  individual  utterances.  The  Wartburg- 
fest,  which  was  avowedly  unpolitical  in  execution, 
witnessed  its  most  general  and  consistent  expres- 
sion in  the  tell-tale  songg. 

Eleven  of  the  before-mentioned  twelve  lyrical 
contributions  depart  from  an  idea  closely  con- 
nected with  student  life  and  terminate,  wholly  or 
in  part,  in  a  thought  bordering  on  political  ideals. 
One  of  them,  for  reasons  given  later,  takes  the 
opposite  direction,  beginning  with  political  ideals 
and  ending  in  their  practical  application  to  stu- 
dent life.  The  opening  and  closing  stanzas  are 
deemed  sufficient  to  illustrate  the  point  under 
consideration. 


Es  gliilit  clort  im  Osten  der  Sonnenschein, 
Die  Nebel  der  Niichte  entwallen, 
Es  ziehet  in  singenden  Feierreih'n 
Der  Jugend  freudiger  groszer  Verein 
Nach  der  Wartburg  heiligcn  Hallen. 

lCf.  Karl  Biedermann,  Fiinfundzwanzig  Jahre  dcutschtr 
Geschichte.     Vol.  i,  p.  164. 


82 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


So  haben  die  Sohne  der  Wissenschaft 
Vereinigt  die  Feier  begangen. 
So  ist  mit  der  Freiheit  die  Einheit  erwacht, 
So  ist  mit  der  Einheit  erscbaffen  die  Kraft 
Und  nimmermehr  diirfen  wir  bangen. 


Deutsche  Briider, 

Frei  und  bieder, 

Sammeln  sich  in  weiten  Reih'n  : 

Nah  aus  Eichenstolzen  Landen, 

Fern  von  Meerumbraustem  Stranden 

Kamen  wir  zum  Festverein. 

Ernster  tone, 

Deutschlands  Sohne, 

Jetzt  der  Schwur  durch  unsre  Reih'n  : 

Felsenfest,  wie  unsre  Eichen, 

Von  der  Wahrheit  nicht  zu  weichen. 

Imnier  deutsch  und  frei  zu  sein. 

6 

Du  ernste  Feierstunde, 

Die  dreifach  hehr  uns  naht, 

Uns  im  geweihten  Bunde 

Mit  Lust  und  Lieb'  umfaht, 

Sei  alien  Guten,  Frommen 

Qeheiligt  und  willkommen, 

Du  tragst  ein  inhaltschweres  Los, 

Das  Sonst  und  Jetzt  und  Einst  im  Schosz. 

Verbunden,  wie  wir  stehen, 

Jung,  stark  und  unerschlafft, 

Auf  segensreichen  Hohen, 

Die  Bliite  deutscher  Kraft, 

So  gliih'  in  unsrer  Mitte, 

Der  Vater  Tat  und  Sitte, 

Und  Freiheit,  Glaube,  Vaterland, 

Sei  unsrer  Freundschaft  heilig  Band. 


Zu  herzinnigen  Vereine 
Bieten  wir  die  Bruderhand  ; 
Bei  der  Wahrheit  lichtem  Scheine, 
Bei  der  Freiheit  Festvereine 
Feiern  wir  das  schb'ne  Band. 

Wir  erscheinen  ferner  Lande 
Warmes,  treues,  deutsches  Blut, 
Durch  der  Heimat  starke  Bande, 
Durch  den  Trieb  zum  Vaterlande 
Waren  wir  uns  lange  gut. 

9 

Auf  Briider  stromt  die  heil'gen  Gluten 
Der  Liebe  aus  der  vollen  Brust, 
Laszt  den  Gesang  aus  Herzen  fluten, 
Zum  Himmel  brause  unsre  Lust. 


Wir  halten  uns  in  Bruderminnen 
Umarmt ;  wir  haben's  ja  erkannt 
Dein  sehnend  Hoffen,  heilig  Sinnen, 
Drum  sei  getrost,  du  Vaterland. 

10 

Auf  deutsche  Briider,  freud'gen  Mut ! 
Der  Freiheit  jubelt  laut ; 
Sie  rief  so  siisz  zum  Kampf  heran, 
Sie  lockt  uns  zu  der  Sonnenbahn, 
Sie  ist  des  Himmels  Braut. 

Dazu  du  uns  willst  Kraft  verleihn, 
Du  Herr,  du  unser  Gott, 
Dasz  Volkeslieb,  und  Relig'on 
In  unsern  Herzen  flammend  thron* , 
Und  ewig,  gilt's  den  Tod  !  !  — 

11  (Feuerlied) 

Des  Volkes  Sehnsucht  flammt 
Von  alien  deutschen  Hohn 
Zum  Himmel  auf, 
Und  mit  den  Vatern  stehn 
Vor  dir  die  Jiinglinge 
Betend  mit  Herz  und  Mund, 
O  Gott,  o  Gott. 

So  lang  uns  scheint  der  Tag 
Und  Gottes  Donner  gehn 
Durch's  Vaterland, 
Zuckt  unser  Arm  nur  ihm, 
Schlagt  unser  Herz  nur  ihm  ; 
Oder's  bricht  himmelwarts 
Im  Siegertod. 

12 

Was  lodern  die  Flammen  von  Bergeshohn 
Hinauf  in  das  dunkle  nachtliche  Blau  ! 
Wohl  Groszes,  Gewaltiges  musz  geschehn, 
Es  regt  sich  und  woget  von  Gau  zu  Gau. 

Weiszt  nun,  was  deutet  der  Orgelklang, 
Die  Flammenzeichen,  der  Rundgesang, 
Jetzt  Wandrer,  wo  auch  die  Heimat  dir  sei, 
Erzahl's,  das  deutsche  Volk  ist  frei. 

13 

Was  strahlt  auf  der  Berge  nachtlichen  Hoh'n, 

Wie  heilige  Opferflammen  ? 

Was  umschwebt  uns  ahnend  wie  Geistersehn 

Und  sagt :  uns  sei  heut  was  Groszes  geschehn  ; 

Und  fiihrt  uns  feiernd  zusammen  ? 

Wir  feiern  die  herrliche  Siegesnacht 

Des  Kampfes  der  Freiheit,  die  Leipziger  Schlacht. 

Hell  lod're  die  Flamm'  auf  der  Berge  Hoh'n, 
Noch  heller  die  Flamm'  in  den  Herzen. 
In  Deutschland  soil  jeder  fur  alle  stehn 
Und  keck  dem  Erbfeind  ins  Auge  sehn, 
Und  errungenes  Gut  nicht  verscherzen  ; 
Und  wenn  der  Erbfeind  einst  wieder  erwacht, 
Unser  Feldgeschrei  sei :  die  Leipziger  Schlacht  1 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


83 


14 

Was  flimmert  dort  blendend  wie  Nebellicht 

An  der  Herbstnacht  diisterera  Himmel  ? 

Ein  hochroter  Streifen  die  Wolken  bricht, 

Und  es  wachset  und  wachset  das  blutrote  Licht, 

Wie  die  Flarame  im  Kriegesgewimmel. 

Es  feiern  die  Hiramel  in  blutiger  Pracht 

Die  Nacht,  wo  geschlagen  die  Leipziger  Schlacht. 

Die  Flamme  mag  sinken,  magschwinden  die  Glut, 

Die  unsere  Feier  erhohet  ; 

Uns  rollt  in  den  Adern  ein  gliihendes  Blut, 

Uns  bliiht  in  dem  Herzen  ein  flammender  Mut, 

Der  nimraer  und  nimmer  vergehet. 

Und  Enkel  noch  feiern  den  Tag,  die  Nacht, 

Wo  geschlagen  einst  wurde  die  Leipziger  Schlacht. 

15 

Auf  !  Deutsche  Miinner  und  seid  wach, 

Zieht  aus  in  froher  Schar  ! 

Hoch  lod're  auf  Bergen  rings  herum 

Fur  Deutschlands  Ehre,  Deutschlands  Ruhm 

Die  Flamme  vom  Altar  !  — 

Der  Kleinmut  kehre  nie  zuriick 
Der  Deutschlands  Ungliick  schuf. 
Bei  frohem  Mut  und  Tapferkeit 
Sei  unsre  Losung  :  Einigkeit, 
Und  Hurrah  !  unser  Ruf. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  some  of  the  poems  show 
the  political  thought  direction  in  a  less  conspicuous 
degree  than  others.  This  is  notably  the  case  in 
Nos.  7  and  14,  both  being  of  a  general  patriotic 
character  so  as  not  to  admit  of  a  poetic  climax. 

One  of  the  songs,  that  of  August  Binzer,  re- 
verses the  direction  as  is  apparent  from  the  first 
and  the  last  stanza  : 

8 

Setzt  euch  Briider  in  die  Runde, 
Arm  in  Arm  und  Hand  in  Hand, 
Feiern  wollen  wir  die  Stunde, 
Wo  dem  heiligen  Christenbunde 
Freiheit,  Licht  und  Kraft  erstand. 
Hoch  zum  Sternenhimmel  tone 
Feierlich  dies  Lied  empor, 
Deutschlands  freie  Musensohne 
Singen  froh  der  Freiheit  Chor. 

Heut  ist  hier  zum  ersten  Male 
Deutschlauds  Bliite  so  vereint ; — 
Freudig  gliinzt  die  Opferschale 
Bei  dem  dreifach  heil'gen  Mahle, 
Wo  die  Flamme  flackernd  scheint. 
Ewig  bliiht  des  Glaubens  Blame 
Treu  in  freier,  deutscher  Brust, 
Uns  gereicht  dies  Fest  zum  Ruhme 
Und  der  Nachwelt  bent  es  Lust. 


Binzer' s  democracy,  unlike  that  of  the  mr-jority 
of  his  fellow  students,  was  a  conviction  arrived  at 
through  his  early  training  and  his  pre-academic 
experiences  in  mercantile  pursuits.  While  born 
in  an  aristocratic  environment,  his  sympathies 
leaned  in  the  direction  of  the  humbler  classes  of 
the  people  on  whom,  during  early  childhood,  he 
was  dependent  for  his  playmates.  At  the  age  of 
nineteen  he  entered  the  business  of  his  brother-in- 
law  in  England.  Extensive  travels  in  the  inter- 
est of  his  firm  gave  him  a  first-hand  knowledge  of 
the  unsatisfactory  political  situation  on  the  conti- 
nent, and  repeated  visits  to  England,  furnishing 
material  for  comparison,  reenforced  his  conviction 
that  unity  and  representation  were  the  ultimate 
strongholds  of  national  prosperity.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-two  he  entered  the  university  of  Kiel, 
where  he  became  an  important  factor  in  the 
organization  and  management  of  the  Burschen- 
schaft.  Here  and  later  in  Jena  he  found  ample 
opportunity  to  apply  the  teachings  of  his  expe- 
rience gained  in  the  larger  world. 

About  two  years  after  the  Wartburgfest  the 
Karlsbad  conferences  caused  the  dissolution  of  the 
Burschenschaften.  It  was  believed  that  the  direc- 
tion of  thought  exhibited  in  the  Wartburglieder 
assumed  too  propagandistic  a  character  to  permit 
further  spread.  The  26th  of  November,  1819, 
on  which  day  the  students  of  Jena  held  their  last 
public  meeting,  is  the  birthday  of  the  secret 
Burschenschafteu  with  a  pronounced  political 
dogma.  At  the  same  time  Binzer  severed  the 
ties  that  had  bound  him  with  unbroken  allegiance 
to  a  union  in  which  he  had  seen  a  realization  of 
spiritual  perfection  in  academic  life — and  nothing 

more. 

PAUL  H.  PHILLIPSON. 

The  University  of  Chicago. 


SPIELHAGEN 

Friedrich  Spielhagen  von  Dr.  HANS  HENNING. 
Leipzig  :  L.  Staackmann,  1910. 

An  adequate  biography  of  Friedrich  Spielhagen,1 
the  German  novelist,  does  not  exist.  If  we  ex- 
clude the  sketches  and  short  notices  which  lie  scat- 

1  Spielhagen  died  Feb.  25,  1911.— ED. 


84 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


tered  in  a  hundred  and  one  volumes  on  German 
literary  history,  we  have  only  some  six  special 
studies  of  our  author.  Of  these  one  is  a  contro- 
versial pamphlet,  and  four  are  comparatively 
modest  attempts  to  treat  such  a  large  subject,  the 
sixth  being  that  of  Dr.  Hans  Hennirig  which 
appeared  some  months  ago. 

Strodtmann's  essay,  contained  in  the  first  vol- 
ume of  his  Dichterprofile,  while  narrating  in  a 
scant  page  and  a  half  merely  the  essential  facts 
of  Spielhagen's  life,  is  an  excellent  appreciative 
study  of  those  of  his  writings  which  had  appeared 
up  to  the  year  1879.  It  needs,  of  course,  to  be 
supplemented  to  bring  it  up  to  date.  Strodtmann 
clearly  recognizes  that  Spielhagen  is  principally 
a  writer  of  long  novels,  presenting  large  and  bril- 
liant pictures  of  contemporary  life. 

In  a  little  brochure  of  some  fourteen  pages 
(Leipzig,  1883),  Ludwig  Ziemssen,  the  author 
and  friend  of  Spielhagen,  during  his  early  univer- 
sity days  in  Berlin,  has  furnished  us  with  a  num- 
ber of  personal  reminiscences  of  the  novelist.  The 
booklet  is  in  enthusiastic  tribute  to  Spielhagen  as 
a  man  and  a  writer  from  the  pen  of  a  friend  who 
had  followed  his  career  sympathetically  and  more 
or  less  closely  for  many  years. 

The  controversial  pamphlet  of  Heinrich  and 
Julius  Hart  (Kritische  Waffengange,  Sechstes 
Heft,  Leipzig,  1884),  was  a  stinging  missile 
directed  with  all  the  bitterness  of  ihejungsdeutsch 
naturalistic  movement  against  the  older  school  of 
novelists.  Spielhagen,  as  their  most  conspicuous 
and  able  representative,  was  singled  out  for  the 
brunt  of  the  attack,  and  a  fierce  one  it  was.  In 
a  number  of  points,  particularly  with  regard  to 
certain  stylistic  defects  and  sensational  tendencies, 
the  Briider  Hart  were  unmistakably  right,  but, 
like  most  fervid  attacks  of  a  new  literary  manner, 
a  general  extravagance  of  adverse  criticism  and 
accusation  that  cannot  be  sustained,  mar  the  value 
of  the  essay. 

In  1889  Staackmann,  Spielhagen's  publisher, 
issued  a  short  work  of  some  eighty-four  pages, 
entitled,  Friedrich  Spielhagen.  Ein  Literarischer 
Essay.  The  author,  Gustav  Karpeles,  presents 
what  is  in  many  ways  the  most  satisfactory  critical 
discussion  and  analysis  of  Spielhagen's  literary 
productions  that  exists.  The  book  pays  less  at- 
tention to  Spielhagen  the  man  and  more  to  Spiel- 


hagen the  writer,  or  rather  Spielhagen's  writings  ; 
and  is  a  distinctly  inspiring  work,  It  owes  its  origin 
apparently  to  the  desire  to  counteract  any  unfa- 
vorable impression  that  may  have  been  stamped 
upon  the  public  mind  by  the  onslaughts  of  the 
literary  coterie  of  the  80' s,  represented  particu- 
larly by  the  aforementioned  publications  of  the 
Hart  brothers. 

Edouard  de  Horsier' s  treatise  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  pages,  which  forms  the  first  essay  in 
his  Romanciers  Allemands  Contemporains  (Paris, 
1890),  is  not  a  work  of  any  depth.  Spielhagen's 
novels  are  not  analyzed  with  sufficient  care  in  this 
treatise.  It  is  a  well-written,  graceful  essay  of 
appreciation  but  has  yielded  a  little  too  willingly 
in  places  to  the  influence  of  the  Hart  brothers' 
polemic.  Horsier  evidently  did  not  know  of 
Karpeles'  study. 

Now  that  the  heat  of  combat  of  the  eighties  is 
over,  from  this  saving  distance  of  a  score  of  years, 
it  is  easier  to  judge  our  author  soberly  and  dispas- 
sionately. The  latest  book  on  the  market,  that 
of  Dr.  Hans  Henning,  has  this  advantage  over 
its  most  recent  predecessors.  It  is,  further,  of 
considerably  greater  length  and  is  the  first  real 
attempt  to  give  a  large,  well-rounded  view  of 
Spielhagen's  personality  and  literary  position.  It 
is  to  be  questioned,  however,  whether  even  in  a 
book  of  two  hundred  and  forty-four  pages,  a 
biographer  can  do  justice  to  such  a  many-sided 
man. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  writer  chose  to  aban- 
don the  conventional  manner  of  biography  and 
dispense  with  chapter  divisions  and  headings.  In 
every  author's  life  there  are  certain  epochs,  cer- 
tain periods  of  unique  or  significant  work,  certain 
turning  points,  which  to  one  who  reads  exten- 
sively and  systematically  stand  out  clearly  from 
the  whole.  In  embossing  these  periods  the  bio- 
grapher assists  us  in  acquiring  a  plastic  sense  of  the 
proportion  of  the  parts  of  the  whole  figure  he  is 
trying  to  make  real  to  us.  "Without  them  the 
whole  is  liable  to  assume  in  our  minds  the  blurred 
and  indistinct  outlines  of  a  landscape  as  seen  from 
a  distance  where  all  objects  sink  into  the  dead 
level  of  the  plain.  A  short  black  line  here  and 
there  is  the  only  indication  that  Henning  gives 
the  reader  of  a  shift  in  the  scene  of  Spielhagen's 
life  or  literary  development.  He  might  at  least 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


85 


have  made  some  such  larger  divisions  as  Spiel- 
hagen's  youth  and  University  days,  his  Leipzig 
period,  Hannover,  Berlin,  not  to  mention  others 
that  could  be  marked  off  on  the  basis  of  his  lit- 
erary productions. 

The  facts  concerning  the  life  and  literary  work 
of  the  novelist  are  presented  in  a  sympathetic 
manner.  Too  much  space  is,  however,  devoted 
to  a  treatment  of  the  external  facts  of  the  author's 
activity,  leaving  a  comparatively  restricted  oppor- 
tunity for  a  fitting  analysis  and  adequate  criticism 
of  his  works  ;  and  here  it  is  that  Heuning  does 
not  reach  to  the  stature  of  his  nearest  German 
predecessor,  Karpeles.  As  is  corroborated  by  the 
notes  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  the  biographer  has 
consulted  a  goodly  number  of  books  and  periodi- 
cals in  the  preparation  of  his  work.  Probably  no 
writer  since  Goethe  has  put  so  much  of  himself 
into  his  writings  as  Spielhagen.  As  Dr.  Henning 
notes  (p.  160),  the  novelist  himself  recognizes 
this  fact.  For  a  proper  biography,  a  careful  selec- 
tion and  ordering  of  significant  portions  of  Spiel- 
hagen' s  novels  is  a  necessity.  Such  sifting  out 
and  arranging  of  extracts  has  been  done  to  a 
small  degree,  but  not  in  the  extensive  and  sy- 
stematic manner  that  the  task  deserves.  The 
avowedly  autobiographical  works  of  the  author — 
Finder  und  Erfinder,  Am  Wege — have  been  drawn 
on,  however,  with  commendable  frequency.  The 
reader  is,  moreover,  particularly  grateful  for  some 
intimate  facts  of  Spielhagen' s  private  life,  his  likes 
and  dislikes,  his  habits  and  methods  of  work,  his 
social  relaxations  and  recreations,  his  personal 
friendships  ;  such  side-lights  on  the  personality  of 
a  literary  man  contribute  a  great  deal  toward  illu- 
minating his  character  and  bringing  him  closer  to 
us  as  a  fellow  human  being. 

The  biography  does  not  consist  of  mere  fulsome 
adulation  of  Spielhagen,  but  is  a  virile  and  sym- 
pathetic attempt  to  judge  him  honestly.  It  recog- 
nizes the  noble  seriousness  and  iron  consistency 
that  characterize  the  novelist's  life  and  work. 
Spielhagen  ever  championed  the  cause  of  the 
oppressed,  stood  for  individual  freedom,  for  equal 
opportunity,  and  took  every  occasion  to  express 
his  strong  aversion  to  class  privilege  in  any  form. 
His  fiery  hatred  of  all  social  abuses  permeates  his 
writings,  often  to  such  a  marked  degree  that  the 
term  ' '  tendential ' '  has  been  applied  to  them,  and 


with  a  certain  justice.  In  fact,  this  has  been  the 
principal  criticism  aimed  at  Spielhagen.  But,  as 
Heuning  remarks  (p.  166),  this  tendentialism, 
these  radical  and  progressive  ideas  of  individual 
liberty,  or  even  of  party  affiliation,  result  from 
the  characters  and  action  of  the  novels.  We 
might  say  further,  that  these  principles  are  the 
noble  ideals  that  the  best  of  the  world's  poets  and 
philosophers  have  entertained  and  are  accordingly 
the  proper  substance  of  any  vehicle  of  literary 
expression. 

We  must  agree  essentially  with  Henning' s 
judgment  in  the  case  of  Spiel hagen's  more  ambi- 
tious works  like  Problematische  Naturen,  InReih' 
und  Glied,  Hammer  und  Amboss,  Sturmflut,  Was 
will  das  werden  f  While  recognizing  the  signifi- 
cance and  excellencies  of  the  Problematische  Na- 
turen, Spielhagen' s  first  work  of  any  considerable 
length,  Henning  is  by  no  means  blind  to  its  faults. 
The  looseness  of  composition  of  the  second  part, 
the  ill-proportioned  amount  of  room  given  to  the 
play  of  chance,  the  sarcastic  and  often  unjust  por- 
traiture of  some  of  the  types  chosen  from  the  noble 
class  and  the  sensational,  often  luridly  and  ex- 
travagantly romantic  situations  are  all  candidly 
acknowledged.  On  the  other  hand,  we  cannot 
subscribe  to  his  favorable  judgment  (p.  204)  of 
Noblesse  Oblige.  This  work  is  one  of  Spiel- 
hagen's  poorest  and  weakest.  Its  basic  plot  is 
conventional,  and  its  characters  as  well  as  action 
are  far  from  convincingly  real.  The  shipwreck 
scene  toward  the  close,  by  its  realisticness  and 
power  redeems  it  somewhat,  but  even  this  scene 
partakes  of  the  artificial,  of  pose.  It  is  also  hard 
to  see  what  justification  Henning  has  (p.  175)  for 
considering  the  drama,  Hebe  fur  Liebe,  &  work  of 
such  artistic  excellence.  It  is  rhetorical,  even 
bombastic  in  places.  The  principal  characters  are 
not  plastically  drawn  ;  their  love  is  not  convin- 
cingly real. 

The  biographer  draws  somewhat  too  freely  on 
the  Spielhagcn-Album,  a  symposium  of  tributes 
of  admiring  friends  published  on  the  occasion  of 
the  seventieth  birthday  of  the  novelist  (February 
24,  1899).  No  objective  judgment  can  be  ex- 
pected in  a  Festschrift  of  this  particular  nature, 
Nothing  could  be  included  in  such  a  collection 
but  what  was  in  every  way  complimentary.  It  is 
to  be  questioned  whether  it  is  worthy  of  a  serious 


86 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


\Vol  xxvi,  No.  3. 


biography  to  quote  entire  a  poem  written  for  the 
purpose  of  ringing  in  the  names  of  an  author's 
principal  works.  Such  a  poem  savors  too  much 
of  the  rhymned  charade.  There  is,  at  any  rate, 
little  excuse  for  quoting  two  such  effusions  in  their 
entirety,  as  is  done  on  page  223  and  224  of  Hen- 
ning's  book,  particularly  when  the  space  for  tell- 
ing the  whole  story  of  Spielhagen's  life  and 
achievements  is  so  limited. 

An  appendix  presents  a  chronological  list  of 
those  of  Spielhagen's  works  which  have  appeared 
in  book  form.  The  list  is  complete,  although  the 
date  of  publication  is  in  a  number  of  cases  inac- 
curate. The  Amerikanische  Gedichte  (renderings 
of  American  poems),  were  first  published  in  1856 ; 
Michelet's  Die  Liebe  (a  translation  from  the 
French),  appeared  in  1858  ;  Michelet' s Das Meer, 
in  1861  ;  Problematische  Naturen,  first  part  1860, 
second  part  (Durch  Nacht  zum  Lichf)  1861  ;  Die 
von  Hohenstein,  1863  ;  Vermischte  Schriften,  1863- 
1868  ;  In  Reih'  und  Glied,  1866  ;  Hammer  und 
Amboss,  1868  ;  Die  Dorfkokette,  1868  ;  Sturm- 
flut,  1876  ;  Plattland,  1878  ;  Uhlenhans,  1884  ; 
Stumme  des  Himmels,  1894. 

Attention  might  also  be  called  to  a  number 
of  errors,  principally  typographical,  occurring 
throughout  the  book.  Hansk,  p.  42,  1.  3,  should 
be  changed  to  hawk  ;  Nilnotes,  p.  88,  1.  2,  to 
Nile  Notes  ;  Willian,  p.  89,  1.  6,  to  William  ; 
Atteniium,  p.  90,  1.  29,  to  Athenaeum  ;  bread,  p. 
165,  1.  19,  to  bred  ;  peu,  p.  182,  1.  30,  to  pen  ; 
Balzar,  p.  65,  1.  26,  to  Balzac  ;  oder,  p.  193,  1. 
14,  to  als.  The  usefulness  of  the  notes  collected 
in  a  body  at  the  end  of  the  volume  is  somewhat 
impaired  by  the  omission  of  a  text  reference  to 
one  of  them  and  the  confusion  that  would  natur- 
ally arise  from  such  omission.  The  difficulty  can 
be  remedied  by  inserting  K9  after  the  word  Bis- 
marck on  page  217,  ninth  line  from  the  bottom, 
and  increasing  all  following  reference  numbers  by 
one,  i.  e.,  the  present  229  becoming  230,  230  be- 
coming 231,  etc.  A  correction  of  statement  on 
page  88  is  also  necessary.  The  American  pub- 
lisher himself  did  not  come  to  Leipzig  and  visit 
Spielhagen.  Finder  und  Erfinder  (n,  285)  in- 
forms us  that  negotiations  for  the  English  trans- 
lation of  German  folk  songs  were  conducted 
through  a  Leipzig  publisher. 

Dr.   Henuing's  book  is  embellished  with  two 


photographs  of  Spielhagen,  taken  in  the  year 
1890  and  1909,  respectively,  also  with  facsimiles 
of  manuscript,  one  containing  the  first  pages  of 
Freigeboren,  the  other  those  of  Sturmflut.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  the  splendid  steel  engraving  of 
Spielhagen  by  Rohr,  hidden  away  in  Ziemssen's 
little  pamphlet,  could  not  have  been  reproduced 
in  place  of  the  present  frontispiece. 


M.  M.  SKINNER. 


Stanford  Uniwvsity,  Calif. 


ITALIAN  VERSE  AND  VERSE  ON  ITALY 

ST.  JOHN  LUCAS  :  The  Oxford  Boole  of  Italian 
Verse,  xiiilh-xixth  Centuries.  Oxford,  Claren- 
don Press,  1910. 

WILLIAM  EDWARD  MEAD  :  Italy  in  English 
Poetry  (Modern  Language  Publications,  1908, 
pp.  421-470). 

ROBERT  HAVEN  SCHAUFFLER  :  Through  Italy 
with  thg  Poets.  New  York,  MofFat,  Yard  & 
Company,  1908. 

GEORGE  HYDE  WOLLASTON  ;  The  Englishman 
in  Italy.  Oxford,  Clarendon  Press,  1909. 

RUTH  SHEPARD  PHELPS  :  Skies  Italian.  A  Lit- 
tle Breviary  for  Travellers  in  Italy.  Methuen  & 
Co.,  London,  1910  (also,  Merrill,  Indianapolis, 
1910). 

The  Oxford  Golden  Treasury  of  Italian  verse  is 
now  available  and  should  be  owned  by  all  inter- 
ested as  teachers  or  as  readers  in  Italian.  It 
serves  well  for  literary  study  in  the  elementary 
branches,  and  its  compactness  adapts  it  to  the 
needs  of  those  who  desire  a  rapid,  enjoyable  view 
of  Italian  poetry.  Its  special  appeal  will  be  to 
those  who  love  poetry  in  itself.  For  that  ever 
widening  circle  of  cultured  people,  capable  of 
enjoying  foreign  art  in  original  forms,  and  desir- 
ous of  spending  a  casual  moment  of  leisure  in 
contact  with  the  expression  of  great  souls,  it  will 
be  a  blessing.  It  is  interesting  also  as  an  evi- 
dence of  the  esthetic  temper  of  its  compiler.  It 
is  not,  however,  typical  of  that  accurate,  pene- 
trating spirit  that  has  given  us  Toynbee  and  Fitz- 
maurice-Kelly.  Rather  it  contains  a  generoua 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


87 


amount  of  misinformation,  but  which  the  serious 
reader  will  correct  with  his  D'Ancona  and  Bacci. 
On  the  whole,  then,  it  is  deserving  of  praise. 

Having  neglected  most  that  is  of  serious  im- 
portance in  the  history  of  Italian  literature,  the 
book  takes  us  to  the  notes.  Here  we  learn  occa- 
sionally the  dates  of  the  authors,  except  possibly 
where  our  little  Larousse  might  fail  us.  Parola, 
we  are  told,  comes  from  Low  Latin  parabola  ;  the 
strambotto  originated  in  Sicily,  as  the  compiler 
learned  from  d'Ancona.  The  caccia  is  not  even 
mentioned.  The  last  word  in  the  phrase  ' '  quanto 
piu  lo  'nvoglia"  equals  involgel  The  note  on 
Miramar  is  :  Maximilian  was  shot  in  Mexico, 
June  9,  1867.  In  short,  the  notes  have  every 
quality  except  usefulness  and  system.  One  may 
suggest  that  a  line  or  two  of  exegesis,  especially 
for  the  more  interesting  poems,  would  be  worth 
infinitely  more  than  this  sixty  pages  of  jumbled, 
unsubstantial  details. 

The  selections,  as  I  have  said,  cannot  fail  to 
be  of  use  and  of  interest.  But  the  compiler  seems 
to  see  only  one  element  in  poetry,  namely,  the 
emotional.  Whereas,  it  seems  to  me,  poetry  that 
is  really  significant,  really  typical,  contains  intel- 
lectual substance,  blended  with  emotional  sensi- 
bility into  artistic  form.  We  can  read  many  of 
these  selections  and  have  absolutely  no  idea  of 
their  authors.  Why  select,  for  example,  to  illus- 
trate Carducci,  Nevicata  and  Funere  mersit  acerbo  ? 
No  one  will  complain  surely  of  the  presence  of 
these  poems,  except  that  they  might  have  made 
room  for  the  Clitumnus  ode  or  that  In  a  Gothic 
Church.  Here  we  should  have  had  at  once  the 
typical  and  the  efficient,  a  notion  of  Carducci' s 
method  and  of  his  view  of  life.  One  notes  further 
a  complete  neglect  of  modern  dialect  poetry,  a 
neglect  which  is  hard  to  justify. 

The  fact  is,  that  Mr.  St.  John  Lucas  has  been 
judging  the  broadest  and  deepest  of  literature 
with  Swinburne  in  his  ears  :  with  a  real  appre- 
ciation nevertheless  of  those  elements  that  corre- 
spond with  what  one  might  call  the  least  virile 
elements  in  Wordsworth  and  Burns.  Whereas 
an  adequate  treatment  of  the  subject  must  view 
with  equal  regard  the  pagan,  the  mystic,  the 
plastic — in  short,  all  the  philosophical  elements 
that  determine  the  Italian  esthetic  consciousness. 

Professor  Mead  and  Professor  von  Klenze  have 


recently  dipped  into  a  beautiful  theme  :  the  inter- 
pretation of  Italy  in  modern  literature.  Professor 
Mead's  running  commentary  on  Italy  in  English 
poetry,  will  be  of  much  utility  to  future  investi- 
gators of  this  subject,  as  general  bibliography.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  he  will  later  give  us  a  more  tren- 
chant analysis  of  his  material  than  the  scope  of 
his  first  article  allowed  ;  and  go  on  to  more  sig- 
nificant generalizations  than  were  there  attempted. 
He  poses,  for  instance,  the  problem  of  the  scarcity 
of  Italian  themes  in  early  English  poetry  before 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries,  a  problem 
which  he  views  as  insoluble,  whereas  positive 
light  can  surely  be  thrown  on  the  subject  from  a 
consideration  of  the  general  question  of  landscape 
in  literature  and  painting.  He  is  already  well 
advanced  toward  the  answer  when  he  distin- 
guishes the  romantic  influence  in  poems  of  more 
recent  date  ;  which  is,  in  fact,  a  substitution  of 
realistic  observation  for  inspiration  that  is  purely 
literary  and  classic.  We  ought  indeed  carefully 
to  distinguish  between  the  themes  that  are  purely 
the  reflex  of  classical  erudition  (for  example, 
Poe's  Coliseum)  and  those  derived  from  modern 
Italian  history  (Whittier's  From  Perugia)  and 
from  Italy  as  a  storehouse  of  natural  and  artistic 
beauty.  We  ought  also  to  approach  the  esthetic 
aspects  of  the  subject  rather  from  the  viewpoint  of 
Italian  interpretation  than  from  that  of  judging 
the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  authors  as  masters  of 
poetry  and  style.  This  would  afford  almost  end- 
less occasion  for  valuable  elucidation  of  really 
obscure  points  :  in  fact,  each  poem  is  an  esthetic 
problem  in  itself.  As  I  have  said,  the  theme  is 
a  beautiful  one.  This  new  treatment  also  would 
not  neglect  entirely  John  Addington  Symonds, 
who  is  surely  one  of  the  greatest  Italian  interpre- 
ters. Nor  would  it  contain  the  statement  that 
"  Ruskin  is  not  commonly  thought  of  as  a  poet " 
after  the  almost  definitive  analysis  of  Ruskin  by 
W.  C.  Browuell,  who  makes  the  poetic  aspect  of 
Ruskiu'  s  work  the  dominant  feature. 

Professor  Mead's  study  makes  a  valuable  pre- 
face to  the  anthologies  of  Stauffler,  Wollaston  and 
Miss  Phelps,  which,  with  the  scientific  motive  in 
the  background,  are,  as  Mr.  Stauffler  happily  sug- 
gests, really  the  traveller's  poetic  Baedeker. 
The  books  to  a  certain  extent  supplement  each 
other,  though  they  naturally  overlap  with  fre- 
quency. Mr.  Stauffler' s  compilations  are  the 


88 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


most  extensive,  owing  principally  to  a  large  num- 
ber of   translations  ;    Mr.   Wollaston  has   main- 
tained   a  noteworthy   artistic   tone,    while   Miss 
Phelps  has  shown  an  erudition  and  taste  unu- 
sually "peregrine."     It  was  the  privilege  of  the 
compilers,    working  on    a   theory   that   required 
neither  exhaustiveness  nor  rigid  selection,  to  omit 
or  include  what  they  chose.     Possibly,  however, 
the  principle  of  translation  was  a  dangerous  one 
to  admit  in  the  works  of  Mr.  Stauffler  and  Miss 
Phelps,  since  here  the  question  of  selection  becomes 
serious.     It   may  be  interesting  to  note,  for  in- 
stance, that  Petrarch's  noble  ode,  Salve  cara  deo 
tellus  sanctissima  salve,  was  written  in  precisely 
the  same  situation  as  that  by  Auguste  Barbier, 
given  by  Miss  Phelps.1     It  would  have  made  a 
good   pendant   in    Mr.    Stauffler' s   book    to   the 
Praises  of  Italy  by  Vergil,  which  in  turn  recalls 
its    stupendous    Carduccian  epigon,    The   Foun- 
tains of  Clitumnus.     So  the  poem   of   Whittier, 
From  Perugia,  recalls  the  remarkably  similar  one 
of  Carducci  on  the  execution  of  Cairoli.     Was  it 
poverty  of  material  that  explains  the  presence  of 
Alfred  Austin's  ode  to  Capri  both  in  Skies  Italian 
and  Through  Italy  with  the  Poets  ?     Here  we  have 
the  verse  : 

'Tis  small,  as  things  of  beauty  oft  times  are  .  .  . 

to  which  we  prefer  the  homely  "Good  things 
often  come  in  small  packages."  And  a  point 
or  two  of  editorship  :  Miss  Phelps  gives  a  series 
of  descriptive  epithets  entitled  Citta  d' Italia. 
It  is  derived  from  Longfellow's  Poems  of  Places, 
where  it  is  described  as  ' '  lines  of  some  unknown 
author. ' '  It  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  of  those 
folk  poems  on  places,  of  which  numberless  speci- 
mens can  be  found  in  Italian  proverb  books,  and 
of  course,  of  unknown  authorship.  The  one  in 
question  certainly  comes  from  Siena.  The  Italian 
sonnet,  Pot  che  spiegato  ho  V  ali  al  beldesio,  trans- 
lated by  Symonds  under  the  title  The  Philosophic 
Flight,is  indeed  given  in  the  Eroici  Furori  of  Gior- 
dano Bruno  ;  but  it  was  written,  not  by  Bruno, 
but  by  Tansillo.  Mr.  "Wollaston  had  the  good 
idea  of  equipping  his  poems  with  historical  and 
exegetical  notes.  But  they  are  very  hastily  com- 

1  The  first  view  of  Italy  from  the  passes  of  the  Alps  im- 
pressed also  Giovanni  Berchet  :  cf.  11  Romito  del  ccnisio,  in 
Opere  di  O.  R,  Pirotto,  Milano,  1863,  pp.  101-106. 


piled.     He  has  not  pointed  out  the  indebtedness 
of  Symonds  for  the  beautiful  motive,  ' '  Praise  to 
thy  servant  death "  in  the  ode  in  the  graveyard 
of  Mentone,  to  the  Laudes  Great  ur  arum  attributed 
to  Saint  Francis.     Silvio  Pellico  was  not  first  im- 
prisoned in  the  Piombi,  as  a  very  superficial  ex- 
amination   of    the   Prisons   would    have   shown. 
Everyone  knows  that  Tennyson'  sf rater  ave  atque' 
vale  was  taken  not  from  the  ode  of  Catullus  to  Pal- 
las, but  from  the  magnificent  lines  at  his  brother's 
grave.     The  poem  of  T.  Moore  on  Venice  is,   of 
course,  a  reflection  of  that  contemporary  hostile 
view  of  the  Republic  which  blamed  her  for  doing 
successfully  what  every  one  else  in  Europe  was  doing 
more  or  less  so.     Modern  criticism  has,  of  course, 
removed  that  stigma  of  ignominy  which  the  Byron- 
esque  romancers,  for  the  sake  of  creating  good  pot- 
boiling  material,  saw  fit  to  fix  upon  Venice ;  as  Mr. 
Wollaston  could  easily  determine,  not  by  reading 
the  law-suit  of  the  almost  isolated  case  of  Antonio 
Foscarini,  but  by  looking  at  the  works  of  his  illus- 
trious compatriot,  Horatio  Brown.     Modern  criti- 
cism has  also  sympathized  with  the  verdict  against 
Foscarini  —almost  unanimous,  incidentally — con- 
sidering only  the  facts  that  were  present  before 
the  Council  that  tried  him.      When  Venice  dis- 
covered her  mistake,  she  made  the  restitution  that 
was  possible   after  the  death  sentence  had  been 
carried  out.      The  invective  of   Moore  against 
Paolo  Sarpi  also  required  comment  only  for  rec- 
tification of  Moore's  error.     Everyone  knows  the 
role  of  the  Cicada  in  poetry  from  Pindar  to  Car- 
ducci.    Here  is  Mr.    Wollaston' s  note  :  "  The 
Cicada  (  Cicada plebeia,  L. ),  Gr.  tettix,  is  an  insect 
belonging  to  the  order  Hemiptera,    which  com- 
prises the  bugs  and  lice  [N.  B.  bugs  in  the  Eng- 
lish connotation,  may   it  be   said   for   American 
readers] .  The  grasshopper,  the  locust,  the  cricket 
are  members  of  the  order  Orthoptera. "     But  we 
are  spared  the  entomology  of  the  Cuckoo  and  the 
Nigh  tin  gale. 

These  anthologies  offer  us  in  general  poetry  of 
a  high  class  that  is  endlessly  suggestive.  The  fine 
poem  of  A.  W.  Hare,  entitled  Italy,  in  Wollas- 
ton, treats  a  theme  similar  to  that  of  Leopardi's 
ode  to  Italy  offered  by  Schauffler  and  Miss  Phelps. 
The  contrast  between  the  passive  lament  of  the 
Italian  and  the  eloquent  optimism  of  Hare  throws 
light  on  the  interpretation  of  both  poems.  So 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


89 


Symonds'  Southward  Bound  sets  off  the  similar 
method  of  Tennyson's  Daisy,  the  former  notable 
for    a   fine    summary  of   Italian    pagan  tenden- 
cies.    We  agree  with  Professor  Mead  in  seeing  in 
Milton's  sonnet,  On  the  late  massacre  in  Piedmont, 
little  that  is  essentially  Italian.    Miss  Phelps,  who 
has  contributed  some  good  translations  of  her  own 
to  the  collection,  has  in  a  prefatory  sonnet  given  a 
happy  turn  to  Browning's  invocation  "Oh  woman 
country,  wooed  not  wed,"  in  recalling  some  femi- 
nine figures  in  Italian  romantic  legend,  that  intro- 
duce a   delicate  expression  of  Italian   yearning. 
And  we  owe  to  her  an  inclusion  of  some  masterly 
poems  that  escaped  the  other  collections  :  here, 
for  instance,  Pember's  Per  gVocchi  almeno  non 
v'b  clausura,  for  Perugia.     In  this  we  have  con- 
fronted the  mournful  temper  of  Tuscan  monaster- 
ies that  recalls  death.,  and  the  beauty  of  nature 
that   invites   to    life — the    theme   of    Carducci's 
Gothic  Church.     So  her  unique  citation  from  Sir 
Rennel  Rodd,  The  Unknown  Madonna,  presents 
a  fine  specimen  of  what  Ruskinian  criticism  would 
be  in  verse.     These  observations  could  be  carried 
to  great  length  :  as  a  testimony  to  the  independ- 
ence of  Miss  Phelps'  method  and  the  keenness  of 
her  judgment,  which  avoids  the  trite  and  is  not 
blinded  to  the  excellence  of  little  known  verse, 
not  sanctified   by  cant,  or  the   glamor  of   some 
great  name.     Her  work  is  a  labor  of  love,  that 
finds  its  expression  through  scholarly  channels. 


A.  A.  LIVINGSTON. 


Cornell  University. 


The  Authorship  of  Timon  of  Athens.  By  ERNEST 
HUNTER  WRIGHT,  Ph.  D.  New  York  :  Co- 
lumbia University  Press,  1910,  pp.  ix,  104. 
(Columbia  University  Studies  in  English. ) 

In  his  monograph  on  Timon  of  Athens,  Dr. 
Wright  makes  a  new  examination  of  the  evidence 
bearing  on  the  various  problems  of  authorship, 
and  from  this  evidence  and  a  study  of  the  pre- 
vious critical  theories  evolves  a  definite  hypothesis 
concerning  the  play.  The  problems  include  the 
question  of  the  sources  of  the  plot,  the  theory  of 
double  authorship  and  the  division  of  the  play 
between  the  two  writers,  the  relation  of  Shake- 


speare's part  to  that  of  the  other  playwright,  and 
the  reconstruction  of  the  original  scenario.  Dr. 
Wright  emphatically  favors  the  theory  that  Shake- 
speare was  the  first  of  two  authors,  not  working  in 
collaboration. 

In  considering  the  question  of  the  sources  Dr. 
Wright  traces  the  successive  appearances  of  the 
misanthropic  Timon  in  literature  from  the  period 
of  the  Peloponnesian  War  to  the  publication  of 
the  Shakespearean  play.     The  scattered  bits  of 
Timon   legend   thus   collected  present  no  source 
which  merits  the  term  in  the  degree  shown  by  the 
older  King  John  or  the  Taming  of  a  Shrew.     It 
is  conjectured,  however,  that  source  material  was 
found  in  the  Lives  of  Antony  and  Alcibiades  in 
North's  Plutarch  and  probably  in  the  repetition 
of  this  sketch  of  Antony  in  Painter's  Palace  of 
Pleasure,  in  the  academic  play  of  Timon  produced 
about  1600, 1  and  perhaps  in  Lucian' s  dialogue, 
Tt/Aoov  17  MicrdvfyxDTros.  Dr.  Wright  is  not  inclined 
to  believe  in  a  lost  source  ;   and  of  the  two  possi- 
bilities about  which  there  has  been  disagreement 
among  critics  he   accepts  the  academic  comedy 
and  questions   Lucian.     The  latter  might  have 
been  known  to  Shakespeare  and  his  contempora- 
ries in  either  an  Italian  or  a  French  translation, 
and  the  spirit  of  the  tragedy  rather  resembles  that 
of  the  Greek  dialogue  than  that  of  the  earlier 
Elizabethan  versions  of  the  Timon  story.    Never- 
theless the  relation  between  Lucian  and  Timon  of 
Athens  seems  to  Dr.  Wright  unproved  and  un- 
necessary.   In  concluding  that  the  Timon  comedy 
was  a  source,  he  reinforces  a  recent  attempt1  to 
demonstrate  that  the    neglect  of  the   academic 
production   in   this   connection  is  not  deserved, 
since  this  comedy  alone  supplies  certain  striking 
features  of  the  plot  and  it  is  by  no  means  impos- 
sible that-  it  should  have  been  known  to  Shake- 
speare. 

The  theory  of  double  authorship  is  determined 
de  novo  by  an  exposition  of  the  aesthetic  contrasts 
and  incongruities  in  technic  and  of  the  divergences 
in  the  characterization  and  the  general  structure 
of  the  play.  These  points  are  readily  established. 
By  use  of  the  criteria  thus  gained,  Dr.  Wright 
proceeds  to  add  one  more  to  the  numerous  attempts 

1  Shalcspere  Society  Transactions,  1842. 
1  Princeton  University  Bulletin,  vol.  XV,  no.  4,  pp.  208- 
223. 


90 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


at  a  separation  of  the  work  done  by  the  two  play- 
wrights. In  this  case,  however,  the  employment 
of  several  criteria,  the  restricted  use  of  the  purely 
aesthetic  test,  and  the  constant  examination  of 
previous  ascriptions  compel  particular  considera- 
tion for  his  conclusions.  Dr.  Wright  takes  Mr. 
Fleay's  "division  of  the  strata"  in  1874s  as  a 
convenient  norm.  Compared  with  Mr.  Fleay's 
results,  this  new  separation  transfers  some  five 
hundred  lines  to  Shakespeare  and  fifteen  to  the 
other  author.4  The  more  important  differences 
between  the  two  results  are  Dr.  Wright's  transfer 
to  Shakespeare  of  the  first  two  scenes  of  act  three 
and  also  of  the  few  lines  printed  as  prose  near  the 
end  of  the  second  scene  of  act  two, 5  with  the  strik- 
ing exception  of  nine  words 6  in  the  midst  of  this 
passage.  From  this  separation  of  the  work  done 
by  the  two  playwrights  it  appears  that  the  hand 
of  the  non-Shakespearean  author  is  found  chiefly 
in  the  first  three  acts,  and  that  the  last  two  belong 
mainly  to  Shakespeare. 

From  the  problems  thus  investigated  Dr.  Wright 
passes  to  the  question  of  the  priority  of  Shake- 
speare's  work  in  the  composition  of  Timon  of 
Athens.  This  eminently  satisfactory  conclusion 
— which  removes  from  Shakespeare's  shoulders 
much  of  the  responsibility  for  the  play  as  it  now 
stands — is  supported  by  more  detailed  arguments 
than  have  hitherto  been  brought  together.  These 
are,  very  briefly,  that  the  passages  which  in  the 
division  of  the  strata  have  been  labeled  as  spu- 
rious are  either  additions  to  the  Shakespearean 
portions  or,  as  in  the  development  of  the  part  of 
Ventidius  and  in  the  motivation  of  Alcibiades, 
subversions  of  the  plot  as  indicated  in  the  authen- 
tic passages  ;  that  the  use  of  each  incident  fur- 
nished by  the  source  material  appears  in  a  scene 
which  is  credited  to  Shakespeare  ;  and  that,  con- 
versely, the  development  of  the  play  in  the  spu- 
rious scenes  is  nowhere  essential  to  the  work  of 
the  master  playwright. 

Having  presented  this  case  for  Shakespeare's 
priority,  Dr.  Wright  returns  to  his  division  of 

9New  Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  1874,  pp.  130-194. 

4  It  is  not  noted  by  Dr.  Wright  that  a  later  experiment 
by  Mr.  Fleay — given  in  a  brief  statement  in  the  Chronicle 
History  of  the  Life  and  Work  of  William  Shakespeare,  1886, 
p.  243 — approaches  much  nearer  to  his  figures. 

6 II,  2,  195-203.  « II,  2,  197-8. 


the  strata  in  order  to  determine  the  original 
scenario.  The  outline  of  the  story  as  presented 
by  the  work  of  Shakespeare  indicates  a  tolerably 
clear  plot  foundation,  but  leaves  several  evident 
lacunae  in  construction  and  motivation.  Dr. 
Wright  does  not  attempt  to  conjecture  Shake- 
speare's own  intentions  concerning  these  gaps.7 
But  he  is  able  to  form  some  estimate  of  the 
second  author's  intelligence  and  skill  from  his 
bungling  efforts  to  fill  in  the  omissions  thus 
defined.  This  estimate,  however,  unfortunately 
fails  to  throw  any  light  on  the  mooted  question  of 
the  name  of  the  interpolator.  Dr.  Wright  accepts 
1607-8  as  the  date  of  Shakespeare's  work,  and  is 
persuaded  that  the  unknown  second  author  re- 
vamped Timon  for  the  stage  before  1623. 

As  is  well  known,  the  general  theory  of  Shake- 
speare's priority  in  the  composition  of  the  play 
has  had,  in  more  recent  years,  the  support  of  a 
majority  of  scholars.  Dr.  Wright  strengthens 
this  hypothesis  both  by  critical  revision  of  former 
arguments  and  by  some  additions  of  his  own.  Of  his 
own  contributions  to  the  discussion  the  most  sig- 
nificant starts  from  his  division  of  the  strata,  but 
has  its  chief  bearing  in  indicating  that  the  work 
of  the  non-Shakespearean  writer  was  in  the  nature 
of  interpolation  and,  perhaps,  alteration.  For, 
having  judged  on  aBsthetic  and  technical  grounds 
that  the  first  two  scenes  of  act  three  are  Shake- 
spearean and  that  the  third  scene  is  not,  Dr.  Wright 
notes  that  plot  threads  from  the  three  scenes  are 
to  be  found  in  the  short  prose  passage  near  the 
end  of  scene  two  of  the  second  act.  In  fact, 
several  other  plot  threads  are  discovered  to  be 
entwined  in  this  passage.  But  the  threads  from 
un-Shakespearean  work  (such  as  that  from  the 
refusal  of  Sempronius  in  scene  three  of  the  third 
act)  are  observed  in  the  nine  words,  "  I  hunted 
with  his  honour  to-day  :  you  to  Sempronius," 
and  those  from  passages  ascribed  to  Shakespeare 
(such  as  from  scenes  one  and  two  of  the  third 
act)  are  visible  in  the  remainder  of  the  prose  con- 
text. The  nine  words  are  therefore  judged  to  be 
un-Shakespearean  ;  and,  being  removed,  the  rest 

7  In  this  connection  a  study,  perhaps  of  more  interest 
than  value,  might  be  made  of  the  half-dozen  later  efforts 
to  complete  or  adapt  Shakespeare's  work.  F.  W.  Kil- 
bourne  gives  a  list  of  such  attempts  in  Alterations  and 
Adaptations  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  133-141. 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


91 


of  the  passage  falls  nicely  into  the  blank  verse  of 
the  adjoining  lines  of  the  scene.  This  feat  of 
textual  criticism,  which  has  some  bearing  on 
most  of  the  problems  considered,  probably  had 
its  origin  in  a  characteristically  sane  comment  by 
Dr.  Furnivall 8  on  Mr.  Fleay's  1874  paper  on 
"  Timon."  But  for  the  complicated  piece  of 
detective  work  involved  in  following  up  that  clue 
we  are  indebted  to  Dr.  Wright.  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted that  he  has  not  shown  evidence  of  simi- 
lar minute  interpolations  into  the  Shakespearean 
work.9  In  the  main  his  ascriptions  are  en  bloc, 
not  en  detail.  Moreover,  the  further  conclusion 
that  the  rejected  Sempronius  scene  was  written  to 
replace  an  original  Ventidius  scene  planned  and 
prepared  by  Shakespeare,  though  attractive,  can 
hardly  be  accepted  as  more  than  a  possibility. 

As  a  whole,  the  book  will  be  useful  as  a  sum- 
mary of  much  of  the  previous  critical  work  on 
Timon  of  Athens.  Moreover,  Dr.  Wright's  keen 
sifting  of  his  material,  and  his  energetic  and  yet 
circumspect  method  of  presenting  his  conclusions, 
both  new  and  old,  combine  to  make  this  mono- 
graph a  forceful  and  commendable  piece  of  work. 
There  are  details  which  will  doubtless  invite  fur- 
ther revision,  and  the  identification  of  the  second 
playwright  is  still  an  important  problem  ;  but  the 
matter  of  the  relation  of  the  two  authors  would 
seem  now  to  be  satisfactorily  established. 


Library  of  Princeton  University. 


HARRY  CLEMONS. 


Anthology  of  French  Prose  and  Poetry,  by 
WILLIAMSON  UPDIKE  VREELAND  and  REGIS 
MICHAUD.  Boston,  Ginn  and  Company,  1910. 
12mo.,  iv-325  pp. 

There  has  been  a  tendency  of  late  years  in 
France  to  restrict  anthologies  to  either  poetry  or 
prose,  and  in  many  cases  the  period  represented 
has  been  limited  to  a  century  or  even  a  half-cen- 
tury.1 Such  anthologies  seem  more  coherent  and 

8  New  Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  1874,  pp.  243-4. 

9  Indeed  this  might,  perhaps,  have  been  done.     With 
due  hesitation  I  suggest  II,  2,  1-8,  and  IV,  1,  37-40,  as 
among  such  possibilities. 

1  Pelissier,  Anthologie  des  prosateurs  franfais,  Paris,  Dela- 
grave,  1910 ;  Gautier-Ferrifires,  Anthologie  des  ecrivains 
francais,  Paris,  Librairie  Larousse,  1909. 


less  elementary  than  the  somewhat  haphazard 
compilations  of  prose  and  poetry  for  school  use 
described  by  Marcel  Provost  as  "morceaux  choi- 
sis,  tr£s  mal  choisis."  This  criticism  has  been 
so  frequently  justified  that  it  is  with  some  appre- 
hension that  one  takes  up  a  new  anthology  in- 
tended for  use  in  American  schools  and  colleges. 

In  their  preface  Messrs.  Vreeland  and  Michaud 
give  the  following  reasons  for  publishing  a  work 
of  this  nature  for  American  use  :  "In  the  French 
anthologies,  published  in  France,  we  have  found 
that  in  some  cases  the  selections  are  too  scrappy 
for  American  students  and  for  American  methods 
of  instruction  r  in  other  cases  some  of  the  best  and 
most  familiar  passages  are  omitted  for  the  good 
reason  that  they  are  generally  known  by  all 
French  youths  ;  and  in  still  other  cases  the  vol- 
umes are  so  burdened  with  selections  from  writers 
of  minor  importance,  or  else  so  critical  that  they 
seem  to  form  a  disconnected  history  of  the  liter- 
ature rather  than  to  be  the  representative  passages 
of  important  writers."  It  is  this  appreciation  of 
the  needs  of  the  American  student  that  has  ena- 
bled the  editors  to  compile  an  anthology  which 
will  be  warmly  received  by  French  teachers,  espe- 
cially those  who  are  giving  outline  courses  in  the 
history  of  French  literature  for  which  apt  illus- 
trations are  absolutely  necessary  if  the  student  is 
to  take  away  anything  except  a  dry  enumeration 
of  facts. 

To  include  in  one  volume  selections  of  repre- 
sentative prose  and  poetry  of  the  last  three  cen- 
turies is  a  difficult  task,  and  the  editors  have 
added  to  their  labors  by  including  examples  of 
the  dramatic  literature  of  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries.  The  Belgian  authors, 
Fonsuy  and  Van  Dooren,  in  the  preface  to  their 
Prosateurs-  francais,  excuse  the  omission  of  dra- 
matic material  by  saying  :  "  On  verra  qu'il  n'est 
rien  de  plus  difficile  a  detacher  qu'une  sc£ne 
d'uue  oeuvre  dramatique.  Tout  fait  corps  ici, 
et  ce  n'est  pas  un  extrait,  mais  plut6t  un  arrache- 
ment,  quelque  chose  comme  une  amputation,  une 
operation  chirurgicale  que  1'on  ferait."  We  are 
grateful  to  Messrs.  Vreeland  and  Michaud  for 
proving  that  so  delicate  an  operation  can  be  suc- 
cessfully performed,  and  certainly  the  selections 
from  the  comedies  of  Marivaux,  Beaumarchais, 
Musset,  and  Augier,  preceded  by  short  notes,  are 
by  no  means  disconnected  mutilations,  but  rather 


92 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


add  a  pleasing  variety  to  the  prose.  It  is  open  to 
question,  however,  whether  the  anthology  might 
not  have  gained  in  continuity  and  effectiveness  if 
the  pages  devoted  to  the  comedy  had  been  omit- 
ted, leaving  space  for  a  more  complete  treatment 
of  the  novel.  Possibly  selections  from  Honore 
d'Urfe"  and  Mile,  de  Scudery  would  not  have 
added  interest  to  the  book  as  a  'Reader,'  but, 
from  the  historical  point  of  view,  a  teacher  of 
literature  would  have  welcomed  a  page  from  the 
Breviaire  du  par/ait  amour  et  du  beau  langage  or 
the  description  of  the  "  Carte  du  tendre,"  while 
the  addition  of  Prevost  would  have  given  the 
novel  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  full  represen- 
tation. It  is,  of  course,  too  much  to  expect  that 
the  novel  of  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  could  be  fully  represented  in  a  work  of 
this  scope,  but  even  so,  the  omission  of  Daudet, 
Maupassant,  and  Bourget  can  hardly  be  justified. 
As  it  is,  the  modern  comedy  and  novel  are  both 
insufficiently  represented,  and  the  last  part  of  the 
anthology  seems  incomplete.  But  it  is  ungrateful 
to  single  out  for  criticism  a  few  omissions  in  an 
anthology  which  contains  well  chosen  selections 
from  the  works  of  most  of  the  important  writers 
from  Malherbe  to  Anatole  France,  selections 
which  are  by  no  means  '  scrappy '  and  which 
reflect  credit  on  the  judgment  and  taste  of  the 
editors. 

The  compilers  of  a  prose  anthology  containing 
over  nine  hundred  pages,  when  reproved  by  M. 
Gustave  Lanson  for  neglecting  to  include  selec- 
tions from  "notre  delicieux  et  unique  Marivaux" 
reply:  "Sans  doute,  mais  il  n'est  pas  toujours 
facile  de  denicher,  chez  un  auteur,  la  'page  d'an- 
thologie.'  Elle  peut  e"chapper  a  1'oeil  le  plus  pe"ne- 
trant."  The  authors  of  the  present  work  have 
had  the  discernment  to  "  de"nicher "  from  the 
' '  Vie  de  Marianne  ' '  that  most  entertaining  epi- 
sode of  the  Parisian  coachman  which  is  admirably 
adapted  for  an  anthology,  furnishing,  as  it  does, 
a  striking  example  of  the  realism  which  charac- 
terizes the  novels  of  Marivaux. 

One  finds  constantly  in  place  of  passages  which 
have  done  long  service  in  ' '  Recueils  de  morceaux 
choisis, ' '  selections  which  are  less  hackneyed,  and 
which  set  forth  much  more  vividly  the  character- 
istics of  the  author.  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre, 
for  example,  is  represented  not  only  by  the  famous 
description  of  the  shipwreck  from  Paul  et  Virginie, 


but  also  by  the  much  more  significant  description 
of  clouds  from  the  Etudes  de  la  nature,  to  paint 
which  the  author  spreads  upon  his  palate  that 
gorgeous  assortment  of  colors  which  was  a  revela- 
tion to  the  eighteenth  century  and  in  which  the 
writers  of  the  nineteenth  century  have  time  and 
again  dipped  their  brushes.  In  place  of  the  some- 
what abnormal  "Lions  crucifies,"  which  is  usually 
chosen  to  represent  Flaubert's  style  as  an  archeo- 
logical  realist,  we  find  that  the  editors  have  fol- 
lowed Gautier-Ferrieres  in  selecting  the  exquisite 
picture  of  Salammbo  gazing  upon  the  sleeping  city, 
a  selection  which  introduces  the  reader  to  the  real 
spirit  of  the  novel.  Such  departures  from  the 
beaten  path  are  frequent  in  the  selection  of  the 
prose,  especially  in  the  field  of  history,  philosophy 
and  criticism,  and  in  such  cases  the  'familiar 
page '  has  usually  been  suppressed  to  advantage. 
Yet,  in  general,  the  editors  have  been  true  to 
their  announced  intention  of  not  rejecting  a  pas- 
sage simply  because  it  is  well  known. 

In  the  poetry  we  naturally  find  fewer  innova- 
tions ;  but  it  is  remarkable  that  each  poet  should 
be  so  fully  represented  and  that  the  omission  of 
the  familiar  and  favorite  poem,  which  one  fre- 
quently regrets  in  anthologies  devoted  to  poetry 
alone,  should  be  so  rare. 

Throughout  the  book,  the  selections  seem  to 
have  been  made  with  the  double  intent  to  interest 
the  reader  and  to  emphasize  the  characteristics  of 
each  author.  So  judiciously  has  this  been  done 
that  the  reader  may  get  an  excellent  conception  of 
the  different  styles  of  such  a  writer  as,  for  example, 
Voltaire,  who  is  represented  by  selections  from  his 
letters,  poetry,  fiction,  and  philosophical  and  his- 
torical works. 

The  introductory  notices  are  brief  but  entirely 
adequate  ;  the  criticism  has  a  direct  bearing  on 
the  passages  selected,  and  the  biographical  notes 
are,  in  general,  restricted  to  admitted  facts.  It 
is  surprising  that  in  one  instance  the  authors 
should  depart  from  historical  accuracy  in  stating 
that  Moliere  married  the  daughter  of  Madeleine 
Bejart,  a  statement  which  has  as  its  foundation 
little  more  than  the  slander  and  gossip  of  the 
questionable  Fameuse  Comedienne.  The  footnotes, 
which  are  mostly  in  the  nature  of  historical  and 
literary  explanations,  add  much  to  one's  appre- 
ciation of  the  selections. 

The  authors  have  succeeded  in  compiling  an 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


93 


anthology  which  is  not  only  particularly  well 
adapted  for  use  in  American  schools  and  colleges, 
but  which  compares  favorably  with  works  of  a 
like  nature  published  in  France,  and  their  book 
will  rank  as  one  of  the  noteworthy  texts  edited 
for  school  use  in  this  country. 


Williams  College. 


KARL  E.  WESTON. 


Moliere,  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme,  edited  with 
an  Introduction  and  Notes  by  M.  Levi.  New 
York,  H.  Holt  &  Co.,  1910. 

In  his  edition  of  this  most  popular   classic, 
Professor  Levi  has  given  us  the  benefit  both  of 
his  wide  knowledge  of  French  literature  and  of 
his  experience  as  a  practical   teacher,  with   the 
result  that  we  have  a  text  of  the  Bourgeois  Gentil- 
Jwmme  exceedingly  well-adapted  to  the  needs  of 
the  colleges  and  high-schools  of  the  country.     As 
is  imperative  in  presenting  a  play  by  Moliere,  the 
editor  has  based  his  edition  on  that  of  Despois  and 
Mesnard  in  the  Collection  des  Grands  Ecrivains, 
but,  as  he  states  in  his  preface,  he  has  frequently 
followed  Vapereau's  text.     Thus  he  has  preferred 
in  general  the  stage  directions,  the  division  into 
scenes,  and  the  readings  of  the  edition  of  1734. 
He  has  also  changed  the  punctuation  throughout, 
and  has  modernized  the  spelling.     A  comparison 
of  Professor  Levi's  text  with  that  of  the  Grands 
Ecrivains  edition  shows  some  forty-two  differences 
in  reading ;  and  while  in  this  matter  Professor 
Levi  has  followed  the  usual  custom,  the  writer 
would  have  preferred  a  text  unchanged  except  for 
modernization  of  the  spelling,   and  possibly  the 
later  form  of  the  Turkish  ceremony.    The  edition 
seems  to  be  absolutely  free  from  misprints. 

Besides  the  text  itself,  there  is  an  excellent 
introduction,  containing  a  life  of  Moliere,  a  dis- 
cussion of  his  art,  and  notes  on  the  characters  and 
history  of  the  play.  Although  comparatively 
brief,  this  introduction  contains  as  much  informa- 
tion as  a  college  student  needs  in  order  to  under- 
stand the  literary  position  of  the  comedy,  and  more 
than  he  is  likely  to  absorb.  There  are  forty  pages 
of  notes  in  which  attention  is  called  to  the  usual 


difficulties  ;  references  to  proper  names  and 
occasionally  to  literary  parallels  are  also  given. 
As  stated  above,  the  edition  is  carefully  pre- 
pared and  is  well  suited  to  the  work  of  our 
schools  and  colleges,  but  the  same  may  be  said  of 
two  at  least  of  the  editions  that  preceded  it. 
Professor  Levi  might  have  made  his  edition 
definitive  and  at  the  same  time  of  unique  value, 
by  introducing  into  his  notes  a  commentary  on  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
a  subject  peculiarly  important  for  a  proper  under- 
standing of  this  comedy,  yet  too  often  neglected  in 
its  interpretation. 

MURRAY  P.  BRUSH. 

The  Johns  Hopkins  University. 


La  Barraca,  novela  por  VICENTE  BLASCO 
IfiiftEZ.  Edited,  with  introduction,  notes 
and  vocabulary,  by  HAYWARD  KENISTON. 
New  York:  Holt  &  Co.,  1910. 

Teachers  of  Spanish  will  gladly  welcome  the 
addition  of  Blasco  Ibanez's  La  Barraca  to  the  list 
of  texts  available  for  use  in  the  class  room.  Mr. 
Keniston  has  done  a  real  service  in  placing  such 
a  virile  author  within  the  reach  of  college  students. 

In  general  the  text  is  well  edited .  The  intro- 
duction is  comprehensive  and  interesting,  covering 
the  life  and  work  of  Ibanez  briefly  but  sufficiently 
for  the  needs  of  the  average  student.  It  clearly 
shows  his  place  among  contemporary  Spanish  nov- 
elists and  the  effect  of  French  influence  on  his 
thought  and  style.  With  but  few  exceptions 
(noted  below)  the  notes  are  ample  and  clear,  es- 
pecially those  giving  Castilian  phrases  as  trans- 
lations of  the  Valencian  dialect  forms.  However, 
notes  50,  1  ;  83,  20  ;  108,  30,  are  not  likely  to 
help  the  student  to  any  appreciable  extent.  7,  24 
is  not  well  expressed.  11,  8  informs  us  that  ya 
"stands  for  a  wink";  the  explanation  is  pic- 
turesque but  a  perfectly  literal  translation  is  sat- 
isfactorily explained  by  the  preceding  sentence. 
Amigos  de  muchas  campanulas  (23,  6)  may  be 
colloquial,  but  is  not  "slang."  In  54,  17  'it 
was  not  the  thing  to  go '  is  just  as  intelligible  and 
nearer  the  Spanish  no  era  cosa  de  ir.  Notes 


94 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


might  very  well  have  been  added  for  the  phrases 
containing  amenaza  (122,  17),  apagar  (207,  25), 
morro  (126,  13),  pegajosidad  (22,  12),  and  hacer 
pelotillas  (108,  19).  It  is  practically  impossible 
to  find  single  words  which  may  be  placed  in  the 
vocabulary  to  fit  these  particular  cases  ;  in  the 
last  two  there  is  a  redundance  in  the  Spanish 
sentence  difficult  to  express  in  English. 

There  are  comparatively  few  omissions  in  the 
vocabulary  considering  its  size.  Those  noted  are 
as  follows  :  134,  12,  camon,  m.  'large  bed';  173, 
13,  cine,  m.  '  zinc  ' ;  194,  30,  fango,  m.  *  mud, 
mire';  125,  30,  lecho,  m.  'bed,'  'couch';  112, 
7,  mariscal,  m.  'marshal';  124,  12,  mellado,-a, 
'nicked':  45,  W,mezquino,-a,  'miserable,'  'nig- 
gardly'; 111,  10,  sable,  m.  'sword,'  'sabre.' 
The  vocabulary  also  contains  the  following  mis- 
prints :  garilla  for  go/villa  ;  cuchillas  for  cuclillas  ; 
pua  for  pua  ;  cantaro  for  cdntaro  ;  sombrazo  for 
sombrajo  ;  senile  for  seniL 

By  far  the  worst  fault  of  the  vocabulary  is  the 
lack  of  sufficient  definition.  In  some  cases  none 
of  the  meanings  given  will  make  sense  or  express 
the  meaning  of  the  Spanish  ;  in  others,  slightly 
different  meanings  seem  to  bring  out  more  clearly 
the  flavor  of  the  original.  I  would  suggest  the 
following  additions:  13,  7,  descomulgado,  'ac- 
cursed, '  '  wicked  ' ;  43,  4,  gremio,  '  ring  ' ;  47, 
27,  rascar,  '  clear  up  ' ;  49,  25,  entablar,  '  pre- 
pare'; 52,  21,  piano,  'side  (of  a  roof)';  52,  24, 
arista,  '  edge  ' ;  59,  21,  final,  '  top  ' ;  83,  9,  pere- 
zosamente,  '  idly  ' ;  100,  27,  propinar,  '  treat  to  ' ; 
103,20,  cartel,  'chart';  103,  21,  punta,  'cor- 
ner'; 112,  13,  casaca,  'coat,'  'jacket';  117,  10, 
guijarro,  '  stone,'  '  pebble  ' ;  120,  19,  mesa, '  coun- 
ter ' ;  124,  11,  anafe,  '  stove  ' ;  125,  22,  hervidero, 
'multitude,'  'crowd';  125,27,  veta,  'rivulet'; 
128,  11,  bracear,  '  swing  the  legs ';  133,  15,  cor- 
vejon,  '  hock  ' ;  144,  23,  encogido,  -a,  '  dejected  ' ; 
167,  4,  pujar,  'vie';  187,  17,  palanca,  'catch,' 
'  lock  ' ;  199,  22,  atisbar,  '  peek  out  at ' ;  206,  3, 
contar,  '  count. ' 

The  following,  while  not  definitely  located, 
could  be  improved  by  the  addition  of  the  mean- 
ings which  follow  :  atentado,  '  assault ' ;  aventar, 
(  winnow  ' ;  bacalao,  '  codfish ' ;  en  barbecho, 
'fallow';  cdntaro,  'jar';  dormilon,  'drowsy'; 
funda, '  case ' ;  glosa, '  comment ' ;  infancia, '  child- 
hood ' ;  lomo,  '  side ' ;  monjil,  '  nun-like  ' ;  vista, 
'glance.' 


If  these  minor  details  are  corrected  in  a  future 
edition  the  text  will  be  one  of  the  best  now  pub- 
lished for  second  year  classes  in  Spanish. 

HERBERT  A.  KEN  YON. 

University  of  Michigan. 


CORRESPONDENCE 
THE  BOTTLE  IMP 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — In  Modern  Language  Notes  for  January, 
1910,  there  is  a  very  interesting  discussion  of  the 
probable  sources  of  Stevenson's  Bottle  Imp.  Mr. 
Beach  gives  as  the  immediate  source  of  the  story 
a  drama  played  in  London  in  1828  under  the 
name  of  The  Bottle  Imp.  The  author  of  the  play, 
Mr.  Peake,  no  doubt  made  use  of  a  tale  published 
in  a  collection  entitled  Popular  Tales  and  Romances 
of  the  Northern  Nations  in  1823,  which  Mr.  Beach 
shows  to  be  merely  a  translation  of  La  Motte 
FouquS's  story,  Das  Galgenmdnnlein.  But  there 
is  an  earlier  occurrence  of  the  story  which  Mr. 
Beach  does  not  mention.  This  is  in  Die  Land- 
stortzerin  Courasche  by  Johaun  Jakob  Christoffel 
von  Grimmelshausen.  The  story  appears  here  in 
an  abbreviated  form  and  forms  but  a  minor  epi- 
sode in  the  novel  ;  but  in  its  main  points  it  agrees 
with  the  story  of  Fouque. 

The  Brothers  Grimm  in  their  Deutsche  Sagen 
relate  the  story  and  give  as  their  sources  the  novel 
of  Grimmelshausen  just  referred  to  and  Der  Leip- 
ziger  Aventurier,  Frankfort  and  Leipzig,  1756. 
The  story  is  here  practically  the  same  as  in 
Fouque' s  Galgenmdnnlein.  There  is  a  reference 
to  the  tale  in  Karl  Simrock's  Handbuch  der 
Deutschen  Mythologie,  Bonn,  1887. 

It  is  easy  to  find  stories  which  resemble  this 
closely  in  the  folklore  of  other  nations.  For 
instance,  in  T.  Crofton  Croker's  Fairy  Legends 
and  Traditions  of  the  South  of  Ireland,  London, 
1862,  we  find  a  Legend  of  Bottle  Hill,  which  bears 
a  close  resemblance  to  the  story  in  question.  With- 
out making  a  detailed  and  comparative  study  it  is 
perfectly  plain  that  the  story  was  well  known  all 
over  Europe  and  that  its  origin  is  to  be  traced  far 
back  to  some  fable  or  medieval  legend. 

TAYLOR  STARCK. 
The  Johns  Hopkins  University. 


March,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


95 


A  NOTE  ON  CHAPMAN 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — In  Chapman's  comedy,  The  Blind  Beg- 
gar of  Alexandria,  there  is  a  passage,  eleven  lines 
in  length,1  which  recalls  very  strongly  Marlowe's 
lyric,  The  Passionate  Shepherd  to  his  Love.  Cer- 
tain lines  also  suggest  an  indebtedness  to  The  Bait, 
Donne's  imitation  of  Marlowe's  poem.  The  last- 
mentioned  must  have  been  written  not  later  than 
June  1,  1593,  and  Donne's  probably  was  an  early 
one  (about  1593),  so  it  is  safe  to  presume  Chap- 
man the  debtor. 

Chapman's  lines,  which  occur  in  the  courtship 
of  the  Princess  Aspasia  by  the  disguised  Count 
Geanthes,  begin  with  an  invitation — 

".  .  .  Come,  sweet  love,  .  .  .," 

and  are  followed  by  a  short  summing  up  of  the 
pleasures  which  the  two  would  enjoy  together — 
singing,  angling,  love-making,  and  Aspasia' s 
adornment  by  him  with  pebbles  brought  by  him 
from  the  "murmuring  springs."  The  poem  con- 
cludes with  a  final  invitation — 

"  Say,  sweet  Aspasia,  wilt  thou  walk  with  me  ?  " 

Marlowe  follows  the  same  general  order  in  his 
poem  :  first,  an  invitation,  then  promises  of  music, 
and  of  various  sorts  of  adornment,  appropriately 
rustic,  and  finally  he  concludes  with 

"Then  live  with  me  and  be  my  love." 

The  two  poems  (for  Chapman's  lines  seem  an 
interpolation  in  the  play)  must  be  compared  by 
the  student,  however,  for  the  really  striking  re- 
semblance between  them  to  be  appreciated  fully. 
The  likeness  to  Donne's  poem  consists  prin- 
cipally in  the  use  of  angling  as  one  of  the  induce- 
ments which  Cleanthes  holds  out  to  Aspasia.  The 
Bait,  itself,  seems  merely  an  adaptation  of  the 
plan  of  The  Passionate  Shepherd  to  angling. 


K.  S.  FORSYTHE. 


Univeriity  of  Kansas. 


THE  NEW  CHAUCER  ITEM 

To  the  Editors  of  the  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — In  my  article  of  the  last  number  of  the 
Notes,  p.  20,  the  reference  to  the  compensation 
for  the  Prince  of  Wales  should  read  ' '  ten  pounds 
a  day,"  instead  of  "one  pound  a  day."  The 
time  of  seventy-five  days  is  the  important  part  of 
the  allusion  and,  as  I  was  reserving  the  quotation 
from  Delachenal  for  a  longer  paper  on  the  general 
subject,  I  did  not  have  it  before  me  when  I  wrote. 
Ten  pounds  a  day,  equivalent  to  160  pounds  now, 
or  about  $800,  is  a  more  princely  allowance. 


O.  F.  EMERSON. 


Western  Reserve  University. 


1  Plays  of  George  Chapman,  edited  by  R.  H.  Shepherd, 
page  17. 


BRIEF  MENTION 

The  first  three  volumes  of  Dr.  H.  Oskar  Som- 
mer's  Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian  Romances 
(The  Carnegie  Institution  of  Washington,  D.  C.) 
have  now  appeared.  .  Vol.  i  contains  L'Estoire 
del  Saint  Graal — that  is,  the  romance  which  has 
been  commonly  called  (without  manuscript  au- 
thority) the  Grand  St.  Graal  and  which  has  been 
already  edited  from  other  MSS.  by  Furnivall  and 
Hucher,  respectively ;  Vol.  n  contains  the  Merlin, 
which  Dr.  Sommer  himself  published  some  years 
ago,  and  Vol.  in  the  first  part  of  Lancelot  del  Lac, 
of  which  two  more  parts  are  yet  to  come.  The 
final  volume  of  the  series  is  to  contain  the  Queste 
del  Saint  Graal,  which  has  long  been  known  in 
Furnivall' s  edition,  and  the  Mori  Artu,  recently 
edited  by  Bruce.  It  should  be  explained,  per- 
haps, that  'Dr.  Sommer  means  by  the  "Vulgate 
Version,  etc.,"  the  so-called  Walter  Map  cycle 
of  French  prose  romances — in  other  words,  the 
five  romances  modernized  by  Paulin  Paris  in  his 
Romans  de  la  Table  Ronde,  5  vols.,  Paris,  1868- 
77.  It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  statement 
that  all  the  romances  of  the  series  except  the 
Lancelot — which,  to  be  sure,  in  bulk  is  about 
equal  to  the  rest  put  together — have  already  ap- 
peared in  print,  and  many  Arthurian  scholars 
will  doubtless  have  the  feeling  that  Dr.  Sommer 


96 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  3. 


would  have  served  the  cause  better,  if  he  had  con- 
fined himself  to  the  Lancelot,  devoting  to  the  col- 
lation of  as  many  additional  Lancelot  MSS.  as 
possible  the  time  which  he  has  actually  given  to 
the  four  other  romances.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
printing  the  whole  of  one  of  the  great  cyclic  MSS. 
of  the  series,  viz.,  British  Museum  MS.,  Add. 
10292-4,  he  makes  it  possible,  in  some  degree,  to 
study  the  work  of  the  scribes  and  assembleurs  in 
fitting  the  various  branches  together. 

In  view  of  the  enormous  bulk  of  these  romances, 
it  is  perhaps  needless  to  say  that  the  edition  is  not 
critical.  Dr.  Sommer  simply  prints  an  exact 
transcript  (without  change  of  punctuation,  capi- 
tals, etc. )  of  the  above-mentioned  British  Museum 
MS.,  adding  a  certain  number  of  collations  from 
other  MSS.  at  the  bottom  of  the  page.  In  the  case 
of  the  first  two  volumes  these  collations  are  fairly 
numerous,  but  they  almost  disappear  in  the  third 
volume.  Dr.  Sommer  has,  moreover,  by  head- 
lines and  side-notes  made  it  easy  to  follow  the 
narrative.  In  the  only  branches  where  as  yet 
comparison  is  possible — namely,  the  Edoire  del 
Saint  Graal  and  Mori  Arin — the  text  of  Add. 
10292-4  is  found  to  be  somewhat  condensed, 
especially  so  in  the  Mori  Artu.  This  is  likely  to 
be  true  of  any  great  cyclic  manuscript  in  which 
the  attempt  is  made  to  include  all  members  of  the 
series.  Considerations  of  time  and  material  would 
naturally  lead  the  scribes  to  condense.  Only  for 
the  two  branches  mentioned  above,  however,  can 
one  make  any  positive  assertion  as  yet  on  the 
subject.  It  is  probable,  moreover,  that  better 
MSS.  of  each  of  the  romances  in  the  series  will  be 
found  at  Paris,  where  MSS.  of  the  prose  romances 
are  much  more  numerous  than  elsewhere.  But 
French  scholars  have  shown  no  disposition  to 
avail  themselves  of  these  treasures,  and  all  students 
of  mediaeval  literature  will  be  deeply  grateful  to 
Dr.  Sommer  for  undertaking  the  execution  of 
such  an  immensely  laborious  task, 

In  the  Introduction  to  Vol.  I,  besides  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  MS.  and  a  table  (not  altogether  com- 
plete) of  the  MSS.  and  early  prints  of  the  five  ro- 
mances, we  have  what  is  virtually  a  summary  of 
the  editor's  views  concerning  the  development  of 
the  cycle  as  already  set  forth  in  various  philolog- 
ical journals.  But  to  any  one  who  has  followed 
the  work  of  Gaston  Paris  and  E.  Wechssler,  Dr. 
Sommer' s  "discovery"  of  his  famous  trilogy  is 
no  discovery  at  all,  and  his  claims  on  this  score 
are  merely  matter  of  astonishment.  The  whole 
question,  however,  has  been  subjected  to  a  search- 
ing examination  by  E.  Brugger  in  Behrens'  Zeit- 
schrift,  xxxiv  (1909),  99  ff. 

The  Carnegie  Institution  is  to  be  warmly  con- 
gratulated on  the  splendid  press-work  of  these 
volumes.  The  misdating  of  the  first  two  volumes, 


however,  is  inexcusable.  All  three  appeared 
in  1910,  yet  Vol.  i  is  dated  1909  and  Vol.  n, 
1908. 

J.  D.  B. 


Possibly  others  beside  the  present  writer,  seeing 
the  title  of  a  book  by  F.  Gaiffe,  Le  Drame  en 
France  au  xvine  siecle,  ouvrage  orne  de  16  plan- 
ches hors  texte  (Paris,  Colin,  1910),  have  con- 
cluded that  it  is  merely  a  livre  d'etrennes,  a 
popular  account  of  the  theatre  in  the  century  of 
Marivaux,  Voltaire  and  Beaumarchais.  In  fact, 
however,  it  is  a  valuable  scholarly  monograph  on 
the  form  of  drama  specifically  called  drame. 
Growing  out  of  the  tragedie  bouryeoise  and  the 
comedie  larmoyante,  this  form  became  definite 
with  Diderot's  Fils  Naturel  (1757),  and  had  a 
triumphant  career  which  was  cut  short  by  the 
Revolution.  Its  chief  importance  is  perhaps 
social  rather  than  literary,  and  it  produced  few 
works  of  permanent  interest ;  but  it  marks  a  sig- 
nificant stage  in  the  development  of  the  theatre, 
in  connection  with  the  decay  of  the  classic  tragedy 
and  comedy.  In  his  book  of  600  pages  M.  Gaiffe 
exhaustively  treats  the  origin,  characteristics,  de- 
velopment and  influence  of  the  drame,  with  a  list 
of  all  the  plays  produced  between  1757  and  1791 
which  conform  to  his  definition, — "  a  new  genre 
created  by  the  philosophical  party  for  the  purpose 
of  interesting  and  preaching  to  the  bourgeoisie  and 
the  peuple  by  presenting  to  them  a  pathetic  pic- 
ture of  their  own  adventures  and  their  own  envi- 
ronment. ' ' 

K.  McK. 


In  the  Revue  de  la  Renaissance  for  1910,  pp. 
113-125,  Professor  John  L.  Gerig,  by  an  article 
on  Jean  Pelisson  de  Condrieu,  has  added  an  addi- 
tional biography  to  his  series  of  articles  on  the 
less  known  scholars  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
His  careful  and  detailed  study  is  an  evidence  of 
how  much  material  for  the  literary  history  of  the 
Renaissance  still  remains  to  be  gleaned  from  con- 
temporary sources.  Professor  Gerig  is  earning 
the  gratitude  of  students  of  French  by  these 
biographies,  which  demand  much  labor  but  are 
forming  part  of  a  solid  foundation  for  a  better 
understanding  of  the  period. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES 


VOL.  XXVI. 


BALTIMORE,   APRIL,    1911. 


No.  4. 


ZUR  SPANISCHEN  GRAMMATIK1 

II.    VERBALE  KURZFORMEN 
1.  poder 

a)  Priis.  Ind. 

a)  pueo1  Cantes  flamencos  18  no  pueo  :  blandeo. 
72  ?io  te  pueo  segui.*  79  Que  no  te  pueo  orbia 
(Mann,  Cantos  populates  n  451  Yo  no  te  pueo 
'rbid).  Cant.  pop.  i  445.  n  179  :  blandeo.  in 
273.  409  :  sereno.  iv  268  :  deseo.  Diaz  Cas- 
sou,  El  Cancionero  panocho  42.  67.  J.  F.  F., 
La  Olla  asturiana  90  pueo  :  esquilacru.  Garcia 
Plata  de  Osma,  Rimas  infantiles,  Apuntes  reco- 
gidos  en  Alcue'scar,  Rev.  de  Extremadura  iv  126 
pueo. 

puees.  Rubi,  Poesias  andaluzas8  126  Ya  te 
puees  aparejar.  Cant.  flam.  19.  118  puees.  121. 
La  Olla  ast.  62. 

pu'ee  Poes.  and.  73.  135.  Cant.  flam.  24.  39. 
44.  La  Olla  ast.  32  :  llueve.  42.  58.  Maldonado, 
DelCampoy  de  la  Ciudad,  Salamanca,  1903,  33 
sitio  puee  (Druckfehler  fur  pueet*)  menos  de  ris- 
corddrseme  siempre. 

Besondere  Erwahnung  verdient  die  Form  puei 
in  Santauder  :  Pereda,  Tipos  y  Paisajes  *  148  puei 
que  fiese  tres  cuarterones.  149.  363.  364.  Ferndn- 
dez  y  Gonzalez,  Cabuerniga,  Sones  de  mi  Valle, 
Santauder,  1895,  46  puey  que.  Cf.  ZrP  xxxiv 
641  ;  xxxv.* 

poemos.   La  Olla  ast.  77  ya  poemos  comer  came. 

1  Cf.  ZrP  xxxiv  641  ;  xxxv. 

3  Die  Schreibung  der  an  die  Spitze  gestellten  Form  gilt 
fiir  das  zumichst  folgende  Beispiel.  Abweichcnde  Schrei- 
bungen  gebe  ich  einraal.  Gleichformigkeit  ist  weder  in 
dernselben  Dialekt  noch  in  demselben  Text  vorhanden. 

5  Diese  Verbindung,  Modusverbum  -{-  Inf.,  begegnet  am 
haufigsten.  In  der  Regel  werde  ich  solche  Beispiele  nicht 
ausschreiben.  Aber  auch  betreffs  anderer  Konstrukzionen 
war  der  Raumersparniss  halber  Mass  geboten. 

4Weitere  Beispiele  fiir  ce  (genauer  2e)  >  ei :  leidores 
Leyendas  Mor.  in  146.  164.  veydor  Ordinac.  Caragoja  n 
426.  467.  Formen,  die  Baist  §  35  zu  beriicksichtigen 
wiiren. 


pueen.    La  Olla  ast.  26  pucen  llamdse  dichosos. 

/8)  puo.  Schuchardt,  Die  Cantes  flamencos, 
ZrP  v  318,  und  Meyer- Liibke  i  §  435  gcbcn 
diese  Form  als  andalusisch.  Ich  habe  nur  aus 
Aragon  Beispiele  :  Garcia — Arista  y  Rivera,  Cau- 
tas  baturras  58  no  te  pud  ver  ni  pintada.  Blasco, 
Cuentos  aragoneses  i  63.  n  54.  Casanal  Shakery, 
333  Cantares  baturros*  38.  52.  Dagegen  puo 
Cant.  flam.  81  =pudo. 

pues.  Beispiele  aus  eiiiem  arag.  Text  des  15. 
Jabrbunderts  (Maestro  Martin  Garcia,  Cbaton) 
sind  Two  Old  Spanish  Versions  of  the  Dist. 
Catonis  15  Anm.  52  gegebea.  Ju'nger  (audal.?) 
Aparicio5  (Gallardo  i  234b)  Fa  pues  ver  :  estoy 
echado  For.  .  .  Dazu  kommen  aus  neuerer 
Zeit  Cant.  pop.  n-280_pwes.  Cane.  pan.  39  pues. 
Cant.  bat.  18.  55.  78.  Cantar.  bat.  4.  30.  101. 
107.  La  Olla  ast.  53. 

pue.  Das  alteste  mir  bekannte  Beispiel  steht 
Rim.  Pal.  41  e  non  se  pue  salvar.  Dazu  fiige  ich 
Poes.  and.  29  pue.  Cant.  flam.  82.  Cant.  pop. 
ii  248  pue.  258.  iv  185  Y  pue  Undebe  castigarle. 
215.  221.  437.  Rueda,  La  Reja  (Nyrop,  La  Espa- 
na  moderna)  131,  28  esto  no  pue  f-eguir  as'tn. 
Cane.  pan.  17.  42.  57.  Allue,  Capuletos  y  Mon- 
tescos  ;  No  vela  de  Costumbres  aragonesas  13.  14. 
161.  Cant.  bat.  49.  55.  63.  Sotileza'  210.  547. 
Penas  arriba3  148.  371.  404.  Caveda,  Poesias 
selectas  en  Dialecto  asturiano2  262.  Del  Campo 
y  de  la  Ciudad  38  Pue  que  .  .  .  104.  110  Piisya 
pue  V.  ver. 

Puen  Rueda,  La  Reja  132,  10  napuen  Idgrimas 
contra  piedras.  Cane.  pan.  64  de  ti  no  pucn  ya 
deeir.  Cantar.  bat.  36  pues  con  lo  que  el  asperdi- 
cia  I  puen  comer  cinco  personas.  41.  61.  81.  Gas- 
c6n,  Historietas  baturras  s  i  28.  Cuent.  arag.  i 
72.  ii  59.  100.  Tipos  y  Paisajes  139.  Cabue"r- 
niga  9.  148.  Rimas  inf.,  Rev.  Extrem.  iv  364 
pucn. 

5  Das  bei  Gallardo  gedruckte  Ex.  ist  ohne  Ort  und 
Jahr.  Das,  welches  Barrera  besass  (Cat.  512 b),  wurde 
gedruckt  Sevilla,  1611.  Ein  drittes  bei  Salva  I  361  a 
"8.1.  nia.  (h&eia  1530)." 


98 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


Die  Entwicklung  der  unter  a)  und  /?)  zitierten 
Formen  konnte  rein  lautlich  sein.  Ausfall  des 
intervokaleu  d  ist  in  den  Dialekten  ganz  gewohn- 
lich.  Krasis  in  puees  >  pues  etc.  ebenso  naturlich 
(Cuervo,  Apuntaciones  55).  Cf.  Cant.  pop.  n 
316  ^Quieres  que  ...  me  que  sin  alimentol  506 
Mira  no  te  ques  dormia.  etc. — ill  273  una  pufiald. 
IV  43  mds  e  sien  punalds.  etc. — Cane.  pan.  47  t6 
er  partio.  50  ids.  etc.  puo  endlich  konnte  aus  pueo 
entstanden  sein.  Fiir  den  Ausfall  des  Mittelvo- 
kals  e  werden  sich  im  Verlauf  der  Arbeit  noch 
mehr  Beispiele  ergeben.  Dass  der  Akzeut  auf  o 
verlegt  wurde,  ist  klar. 

Merkwiirdig  ist,  dass  Beispiele  fiir  pueo,  puees, 
etc.  (auch  puea  etc. )  in  Aragon  fehlen.  Ich  mag 
sie  liberseheu  habeu.6  Anderenfalls  \vird  wenig- 
stens  in  Aragon  puedo  unmittelbar  zu  puo  gewor- 
den  sein.  Dafiir  wiiren  dann  audere  als  lautliehe 
Griinde  zu  suchen. 

b)  Pras.  Konj. 

a)  puea  1.  Cant.  pop.  I  442  Pd  que  lo  que  boy 
buscando  Lo  puea  'rcansa  y  bense. 

pueas  Cant.  flam.  32  :  beas. 

puea  3.  Cant.  pop.  i  101  Er  que  puea  Que  s'es- 
conda.  in  273.  Cane.  pan.  88.  La  Olla  ast.  14. 
Del  Campo  y  de  la  Ciudad  97.  127  Pero  cudiao, 
no  te  la  ejo  no  sea  que  te  engaranes  y  no  puea 
dimpute  desengarabitarte  los  deos. 

/3)  pud  3.  Cant.  bat.  82  No  tengas  miedo  d 
quererme,  rosalico  sin  goler,  que  yo  siempre  doy  la 
cara  en  lo  que  pud  suceder. 

Hierher  stelle  ich  noch  Cane.  pan.  18  Ponte  las 
arraeadas  de  media  luna,  que  pud  ser  que  la  noehe 
se  ponga  escura.  51  La  moza  qu'es  desanchd,  la 
comparo  d  la  acituna;  que  la  que  crees  qu'estd 
verde  pud  ser  qu'este  mds  maura.  Hist.  bat.  I  6 
Y  bien  pud  ser  que  .  .  . 

Zvvar  die  Grammatik  verlangt  hier  pudiera, 
und  eine  Entwicklung  iiber  pudid  (cf.  §  8)  > 

6  Fiir  die  rechte  Beurteilung  dieser  Arbeiten  wird  die 
folgende  Bemerkung  nicht  iiberfliissig  sein.  Die  Haupt- 
masse  des  Materials  wurde  in  jahrelangem  Lesen  gesam- 
melt.  Vieles  zog  dabei  meine  Aufraerksamkeit  auf  sich, 
zu  Vieles,  und  so  wird  mir  hier  und  dort  ein  Beispiel 
eutschliipft  sein,  das  in  die  Geschichte  eines  Wortes  etc. 
gehort  oder  zu  sonstigen  Zwecken  der  Vollstiindigkeit 
sich  geeignet  hiitte.  Liicken,  die  sich  bei  der  Zusammen- 
stellung  fiir  den  Druck  ergaben,  habe  ich  auszufiillen  ge- 
sucht,  indem  eine  Zahl  von  Texten  noch  einmal  daraufhin 
gelesen  wurde.  Alles  wiederzulesen  fehlte  mir  Zeit  und 
Lust. 


*puid  >  pud  ware  nicht  ganz  ausgeschlossen, 
allein  die  Volkssprache  darf  sich  in  diesen  Fallen 
pueda  gestatten.  So  teilt  mir  Cuervo  brieflich 
mit,  an  dessen  Giite  und  Gelehrsamkeit  man  sich 
niemals  vergeblich  wendet. 

puan.    Cant.  bat.  13  Atate  bien  los  calzones  que 
no  te  se  pudn  caer. 

2.   querer 
a)  Pras.  Ind. 

<0  quieo.  Poes.  and.  19  Pues  quieo  robala,  /  y 
quieo  tabien  d  Bias  Lopez  /  envialo  ...  61  Zi 
quieo,  y  jerre  que  jerre.  66  ^  Asercame  yo  ?  .  .  . 
j  no  quieo  !  Cant.  flam.  37  Que  no  quieo  yo  tra- 
bajd.  58  No  quieo  yo  acordarme.  Cant.  pop.  in 
289  Yahora  bienes  d  quererme,  Cuandono  te  quieo 
pd  nd.  302.  303  Contigo  no  quieo  mds  liga. 
iQuieesI  La  Olla  ast.  100. 
quiee.  Juan  del  Castillo,  Sainetes  i  62  Teresa. 
£  Que  se  ofrece  ?  Poenco.  i  Me  quiee  uste  /  hacer  el 
gusto  .  .  .?  163  Quien  de  ustees  quiee  prestarme  / 
un  trabuco  naranjero  ?  Cant.  flam.  40  Tu  mare 
no  me  quie  d  mi ;  Tu  mare  quiee  a  la  reina  .  .  . 

/8)  quid.  Poes.  and.  37  porque  yo  no  quid,  mal 
majo,  que  ...  45.  133.  Cant.  flam.  50  Bibo 
me  quio  yo  enterrd.  65  No  quid  yo  acordarme. 
96  Yo  no  te  quid  d  tipa  nd.  103.  Cant.  pop.  n 
168  Que  la  quid  7  yo  conose.  in  336  Que  yo  no  la 
quid  pd  suegra.  409.  Rueda,  La  Reja  124, 
14  no  quid  novio.  132,  7.  Cant.  bat.  59.  67.  78 
que  no  quid  de  ti  ni  aun  eso.  Cuent.  arag.  I  3  La 
Pilara  me  quie  d  mi,  yo  la  quid  d  ella.  14.  72. 
84  No  quio  nada  y  quid  mucho.  85  j  Que  no  quid 
diner os  !  n  6. 

quies.  Ich  habe  keine  alteren  Beispiele  als 
Enema  190.  196  si  quies.  216  j,  Quies  que  .  .  .? 
247.  Gleichfalls  alt  sind  Pedraza,  Danza  de  la 
Mtierte  (BAE  LVIII)  42  b  Dejame  un  poco,  si 
quies  mi  vivir.*  Barahona  de  Soto  (Marin)  593. 
603  quite g  que  .  .  .  Autos  (Rouanet)  i  300,  501 
quies  :  rreves  :  pies.  398,  106  quies10  :  eonoceis  : 
espantareis.  in  12,  339  :  tres.  266,  154 :  pies. 

7  Dazu  die  Anm.  S.  194  :  "  Qui6  :  de  quiero,  quieo  ;  y  de 
ahf  quio." 

8  Hrsg. :  "Pongo  quits  por  quieres  (contraccion  que  se 
uso  hnsta  en  el  siglo  xvir)  por  pedirlo  asi  la  medida,  en 
este  y  algun  otro  verso." 

9  Hrsg. :    "  contraccion   de   quieres,    algo   usada   en   el 
siglo  xvi." 

10  Hrsg. :  "Le  ms.   et  P[edroso]    quieres.     Mais  c'est 
quies  qu'avait  ^crit  1'auteur,  comme  le  pro uve  la  rime." 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


Guillen  Robles,  Leyendas  moriscas  n  160  si  tu 
quie(re)s11  vencella.  225  si  tu  quieres  (Hs.  quies) 
salvarte.  261  £  quie(re)8  ll  de  mi  otra  cosa  .  .  .  ? 
350  iQuies  i  oh  Amir  !  que  saiga  &  Ali  ?  Guillen 
Robles,  Leyendas  de  Jos6  168  },y  que  quieres  (Hs. 
quies)t  215  he  entendido  lo  qu'  has  nombrado  en 
ella  (sc.  tu  carta),  y  lo  que  quieres  (Hs.  quies~)  de 
pagar  (yo)  la  obediencia  a  tu  .  .  .  y  tu  quies  gue- 
rrearme  .  .  .  Palau,  S.  Orosia(Fernandez-Guerra) 
400  quies  :  heis"  (saberlo  h. ).  2313  quies13  :  es. 
"Weitere  Beispiele  aus  dem  16.  und  17.  Jahrhun- 
dert  bei  Cuervo,  Apuntaciones  533.  Aus  dem  18. 
Jahrh. :  Castillo,  Sainetes  i  82.  n  40.  Dazu  aus 
neuerer  Zeit :  Cant.  pop.  n  439  quies  que.  in 
340.  iv  436.  470.  Rueda,  La  Reja  133,  11  no 
me  quies  como  antes.  Cane.  pan.  24.  43  tu  me 
quies  como  la  Virgen.  Cant.  bat.  23.  32  no  quies 
a  naide.  38.  Saroihandy,  Ann.  fie.  Haut.  Et. 
1898,  90  (Graus).  Poes.  sel.  en  Dial.  ast.  203. 
223  Si  tu  quies,  dempues  iremos.  La  Olla  ast.  66  : 
mes.  Vigon,  Juegos  y  Rimas  infantiles  recogidas 
en  ...  Villaviciosa,  Colunga  y  Caravia  51.  52. 
62  A  quien  quies  mas  .  .  .  ?  Del  Campo  y  de  la 
Ciudad  37. 

Wenn  Diez537  (=n  186)  von  "  poet,  quies" 
spricht,  so  ist  das  so  zu  verstehen,  dass  die  litera- 
rische  Sprache  die  Form  nur  in  der  Poesie  zulasst 
(oder  zuliess?). 

Zu  vergleichen  ist  port,  ques,  s.  C.  M.  de  Vas- 
concellos,  Arch.  f.  n.  Sprach.  LXV  48  b. 

quiz,  Castillo,  Sainetes  i  66  j  me  quie  uste  dar  la- 
candela  ?  in  249  Quien  quie  ealdo  ?  Poes.  and. 
33  i  quien  quie  mas  ?  34.  35.  Cant.  flam.  40  (cf. 
sub  quiee).  65.  Cant.  pop.  in  336  no  me  quie 
pa  nuera.  449.  iv  444.  Cane.  pan.  59.  71  Tu 
maere  quie  pa  ti  un  rey.  Cant.  bat.  36  cada  cosa 
quie  su  cosa.  76.  90  \  Aun  fatreves  d  dicir  j  que 
no  te  quie  mi  presona  "  y  .  .  .  95  No  te  quie  mi 
madre  d  ti.  Cantar.  bat.  29.  39.  Del  Campo  y 

11  Die  Hs.  hat  quies,  obgleich  der  Hrsg.  das  nicht  be- 
sonders  bemerkt.  Vgl.  zu  seiner  Inkonsequenz  die  Bei- 
spiele SS.  225  ;  350. 

11  Wie  man  oben  Autos  I  398  conopes  etc.  schreiben 
konnte,  so  liier  Ms.  Cf.  Delgado,  Retrato  de  la  lozana 
Andaluza  (1871)  76  Vamos  olid  y  vello  hes. 

"Hrsg.:  "quies.  Quieres." 

"  mi  presona  =  yo.  Cf.  Diez  810  (=  in  66).  Tobler, 
V.  B.  I  32.  Krenkel,  Klass.  Biihnendicht.  d.  Spanier 
II  161. 


de  la  Ciudad  33  £  Y  que  quie  uste  que  haga  .  .  .  ? 
38.     134  iQue  quie  uste  que  haga  .  .  .  ? 

In  schneller  Rede  wird  quie  uste  zu  quicude 
(qutiuste)  und  dies,  durch  Ausfall  des  Mittel- 
vokals,  zu  quiuste.  Ich  kenne  nur  arag.  Bei- 
spiele :  Cuent.  arag.  I  19  ^Quiuste  un  poquicol 
36  iQuiuste  que  la  llame  yo?  11  10 ^Quiuate  que 
le  dig  a  una  cosa,  padre  ?  14  £  Y  con  eso  se  quiuste 
curar  ?  16  iQue  quiuste  que  sea  ?  18  ^Quiuste  que 
lo  lleve  ?  29  Entruste,  don  Antero  ;  £  quiuste  cenar  ? 
quien.  Schon  Lope,  El  Despertar  ii  quien 
duerme  (BAE  XLI)  351  a  A  Ruyero  quien  matar 
(im  Munde  eines  villano~).  Ferner  Cane.  pan.  55 
Munchos  hay  en  este  mundo  que  quien  coger  sin 
sembrar.  Cant.  bat.  40  nos  quien  acumular. 
Cantar.  bat.  102  no  quien  ir  &  la  escuela.  Cuent. 
arag.  I  25  j  Que  no  nos  quien  creer  !  11  87.  88.  97 
ettas  cosas  requien  tiempo.  Hist.  bat.  n  98  ^  que 
quien  ustes  dicir  ?  99  Si  quien  ustes  un  trago  de 
prensao. 

Ob  quieo  etc.,  quio  etc.  auf  rein  lautlichem 
\Vege  sich  entwickelt  haben,  ist  mir  zweifelhaft. 
Ich  lasse  zunachst  ein  paar  Autoritiiten  sprechen. 
Schuchardt,  ZrP  v  317  :  "Im  Inlaut  [schwin- 
det  r  im  Andal.],  nach  Rodriguez  Marin,  in  der 
3.  P.  PI.  Perf. :  mataon,  comieon,  escubrieon  und 
sonst  '  muchas  veces  ' :  paa  pa  (so  auch  astur. ), 
quieo,  mia,  paece  (ebenso  astur.).  Es  ware  zu 
untersuchen,  unter  welchen  Bedingungen  inter- 
vocalisches  r  bleibt  ;  besonders  wird  es  zwischen 
gleichen  Vocalen  schwinden  (pernal,16  quies),  \vie 
dies  auch  im  Buenosair.  der  Fall  ist  (pa  ,  peegil)." 
Welter  (S.  318)  macht  Schuchardt  auf  pae  <pare 
<  padre,  comae  aufmerksam.  Ich  fiige  zu  diesen 
Beispielen  hiuzu  bien  vale  .  .  .  /  lo  mesmo  que  un 
maavei  Poes.  and.  78. 

Saroihandy,  Ann.  EC.  Haut.  Et.  '98,  90,  be- 
zeugt  fur  Graus  (Aragon)  "  quies  (cast,  quieres), 
mues  (cast,  mueresy  und  bemerkt  in  einer  Anm. 
zu  dera  letzteren  :  "L'  r  tombe  entre  voyelles 
dans  certains  mots  qui  reviennent  sou  vent  dans  la 
conversation  :  paece  (cast,  ^arece),  mia  (cast, 
wu'ra),  pa  (cast.  para).  Mais  ceci  se  rencontre 
Sgalement  dans  la  prononciation  vulgaire  du 
castillan." 

Munthe,  Auteckningar  39,  fuhrt  als  astur.  auf 
paez,  quies,  pa,  pai,  mdi. 

15  Mir  unverstiindlich. 


100 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


Dazu  mochte  ich  folgendes  bemerken  : 
Betreffs  mataon,  comieon  heisst  es  bei  Marin, 
Cant.  pop.  iv  136  :  "No  es  fenomeno  muy  ge- 
neral." 

Es  ist  ferner  auftallig,  dass  Formen,  in  denen 
bloss  -r-  gefallen  (auch  quiea  etc. ;  vgl.  §  1  a,  ft. ) 
in  Aragon  ganz  zu  fehlen  scheinen  und  in  den 
iibrigen  Dialekten  nur  schwach  vertreten  sind. 

Somit  bleiben  im  grossen  und  ganzen  paa,  quies, 
mia,  paece,  pae,  mae.  Alles  Worter,  die,  wie 
bereits  Saroihandy  ausgesprochen,  haufig  in  der 
Rede  vorkommen,  daher  leicht  verkiirzt  werden 
konnen. 

Die  grossere  oder  geringere  Verkiirzung  wird 
sich  nach  dem  Tempo  der  Rede  richten. 

Endlicb  zeigt  quiees,  wie  man  sich  die  Verkiir- 
zung in  ihrem  Anfang  vorzustellen  hat.     Anders 
Baist  §  54  und  Leite  de  Vasconcellos,  Rev.  lus. 
xii  306,  die  von  quiers  (bezw.  quer's)  ausgehen. 
b)  Pras.  Konj. 

a)  quiea  fehlt  ;  doch  vgl.  unter  siquiea. 
0)  quias.   Cuent.  arag.  n   77  Pues  entre  mi 
madre  y  yo  le  metimos  el  piazo  en  la  boca,  y  que 
quids  que  no,  se  lo  hicimos  tragar. 

quid  3.  Cantar.  bat.  9  "Quien  busque  distra- 
cion,  que  entre.  Quien  quid  carino,  que  saiga." 
19  j  Quid  Dios  que  .  .  . !  81.  88  La  que  me  quid 
pa  marido  que  venga.  Cuent.  arag.  I  62  ( Jemand, 
nach  seinem  "oficio  "  gefragt,  antwortet)  pion,  u 
bracer o,  u  como  uste  quid  llamalo. 

Beispiele  aus  Andalusien,  Leon  fehlen  ;  doch 
vgl.  unten. 

Hier  mogen  Zusarnmensetzungen  mit  quid 
folgen  : 

Cane.  pan.  34  andequia  (kast.  dondequiera~)  que 
lo  (sc.  mi  carino)  pongo,  alii  se  quea. 

Hist.  bat.  i  25  Cualquia  me  gana  a  mi  a  mintir 
y  desagerar  cuando  yo  quiero. 

Cant.  flam.  56  Que  tan  siquiea  una  horita  ar 
dia  Que  me  benga  d  be. 

Von  einem  audal.  siquia  spricht  Schuchardt, 
ZrP  v  321.  Ich  habe  notiert :  Cane.  pan.  35  ni 
siquia  lo  imagino.  Hist.  bat.  I  9  Saca  tu  uno  del 
pueblo  que  no  le  haiga  pegao  d  la  parienta  un  par 
de  punetazos  siquia  pa  recuerdo.  Del  Campo  y  de 
la  Ciudad  117  ^F  que  haces,  que  ni  siquia  te  re- 
mangas  los  brazos  pa  lavar  ? 

3.  tener 


rienda.  58  No  sarga  la  luna  Que  no  tiee  pa  que. 
61  Penas  tiee  mi  mare  (Cant.  pop.  iv  127  Penas 
tie  mi  mare). 

/?)  to.  Poes.  sel.  en  Dial.  ast.  76  non  to  calen- 
tar.  147  to  anadite.  234  to  decer.  La  Olla  ast. 
90  tofacelu.  96  to  cortdte.  99  non  to  quear. 

to  ist  auf  Asturien  beschrankt  und  weiter  in 
seinem  Gebrauch,  nach  den  Beispielen  zu  schlies- 
sen,  auf  die  Bildung  des  Futurs.  Doch  fiihrt 
Rato  y  He  via,  Vocabulario  de  las  Palabras  y 
Frases  babies  136,  to  tenio  im  Paradigma  von 
"  ter  6  tener"  an. 

Von  diesem  Inf.  ter  aus,  der  allerdings  eher 
galiz.  und  port,  als  span,  ist,  ko'nnte  to  gebildet 
sein,  etwa  nach  der  Proporzion  ser  :  so  =  ter  :  x. 

ties.  Cant.  flam.  66  Tu  me  ties  a  mi  Como  San 
Lorenzo.  Cant.  pop.  i  63  no  tids  dinero.  in  298. 
332  Tu  tie  'n16  la  cabesaun  nio.  Cane.  pan.  41. 
54  Tengo  yo  cuatro  eosas  que  no  ties  tu.  65  Cant, 
bat.  17  :  nuez.  79  ties  ya  otro  cortejo.  Cantar. 
bat.  13.  24.  25  tu  ties  un  dedo  malo.  Cuent. 
arag.  n  15  \Ay,  que  cosas  ties,  Manuel  \  Del 
Campo  y  de  la  Ciudad  59. 

tie.  Cant.  pop.  i  63  tie  dinero.  II  9  tie  que 
dina.  304.  Cane.  pan.  18  j  que  te  tie  rabia  !  52. 

58  asta  el  que  no  tie  trebajo,lbastante  trebajo  tiene  : 
encuentre.     59  Tan  probe  es  quien  no  tie  un  duro  / 
como  er  que  lo  tie  y  lo  guarda.     Del  Campo  y  de 
la  Ciudad  43  Tie  que  ver  esto.   58.   59  £  que  tie  eso 
que  ver  con.  .  .?    77.  Rimas  inf.,  Rev.  Extrem. 
iv  367. 

Vgl.  die  it.  Imperative  te'  (Vockeradt  §  68,  9), 
vie'  (Vockeradt  §  68,  10). 

tien.  Ein  altes  Beispiel  Diego  Sanchez  de  Ba- 
dajoz  i  343  vemos  .  .  .  Que  las  mds  mujeres  tien 
Envidia  .  .  .  Cane.  pan.  56  La  mujer  moza  y  la 
pulga  I  tien  la  mesma  condicion.  59.  Cant.  bat.  96. 
Cantar  bat.  23  ;  Ridiez  y  que  inteligencia  I  tien 
algunos  animales  !  41.  65.  79.  Cueut.  arag.  II 

59  alii  tien  ustes  lo  que  son  las  cosas.     M.  Goyri 
de   Menendez   Pidal,    La  Difunta    pleiteada   18 
(Romanze  aus  Villimar  [Burgos])  la  (sc.  i  Dona 
Angela)  tien  mandada  sus  padres  /  al  mercader  de 
la  villa. 

Zur  Eutstehung  dieser  Formen  s.  Schuchardt, 
ZrP  v  319  :  "  Eine  schwache  Neigung,  denden- 
talen  Nasal  zu  entfernen,  zeigt  sich  auch  im  An- 
dalusischen  :  tiee,  viee,  Maolito  oder  Maoliyo. 


a)  tiee.  Cant.  flam.    45  Que  mi  quere  no  tiee         16  S.  Schuchardt,  ZrP  v  319. 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


101 


Ich  hege  ahnliche  Bedenken  wie  betreffs  der 
Kurzformen  von  quiero. 

4.    venir 

vies.  Cane.  pan.  40  JSehalepan  arperro  si  vies 
&  verme. 

bie.  Cane.  pan.  30  veo  que  bie  tupaere  con  una 
vara. 

vien.  Ein  altes  Beispiel  Tirso,  El  Pretendieate 
al  Reves  (BAE  v)  41  a  A  lafe  que  vien  "  de  prisa 
(im  Munde  eines  pastor}.  Cane.  pan.  87  los  que 
los  vien  d  prender. 

5.  Kurzformen  des  Imp.  Sing,  eiuiger 
Verba  der  i  Konj. 

a)  mid.  Cant.  flam.  82  Mia  que  no  has  de  ser 
eterno.  Cant.  pop.  11  69  \Mia  tu  que  flamenca 
eres  .  .  . !  217  [Mia  (  !)  que  nombre  tan  bonito  .  .  . ! 
317  Mia  tu  si  soy  guen  gitano.  Cant.  bat.  20 
I  Mid  (!)  tu  si  sere  forano  !  30  \Mid  no  venga  d 
resultar  que  .  .  . !  48.  62.  78.  Cuent.  arag.  n  6. 
Capuletos45.  55.  303  Mialo — ,  dijolaherrera,— 
Escenasmontanesas,2 152.  359.  Sotileza  123.  124 
\Pos  mlate(\~}el  otro  .  .  . !  164.  DelCampo  y  de  la 
Ciudad  127  Pus  miald(  I)  que  ronosay  que  miseriosa. 

Zur  Verschiebung  des  Akzeuts  s.  Hanssen 
§  5,  10. 

Mire  uste  (oste)  wird  zunachstmir'  uste  18:  Cant, 
pop.  in  417  No  me  mir'  uste  d  la  cara.  424.  iv 
277.  Cane.  pan.  42  miroste  qu'es  juerte  cosa  ! 
Daraus  dann  miuste19:  Poes.  and.  77  miuste;  con 
eza  mira  /  estd  isiendo  zupoer.  Cuent.  arag.  i  78 

17  Hrsg. :  Vienen.  « 

18  In  einigen  Drucken  wird  die  Elision  des  tonlosen  e 
graphisch  angedeutet,  in  anderen  nicht.     Cant.  flam.  108 
JEscuch'    unte.     Ib.  No  gast'    uste.     Cant.  pop.  I  48  Tap' 
uste.     49.    52  No  me  peg'  uste.    81  i  quiet'  uste  .  .  .  ?     84 
compr  uste.     99  Entr'  uste  (iv  290  Entr'  uste)  etc.    Dage- 
gen  Cuent.  arag.  II  29  Entruste,  don  Antcro.     Hist.  bat.  i 
90  i  Sabuste  que  .  .  .  ? 

Interessanter  ist  Poes.  and.  78  ^no  vuste  que  eze  potro  ez 
unafieral  Und,  auf  derselben  Seite,  mit  Assimilazion  des 
auslautenden,  betonten  e  an  folgendes,  tonloses  u  :  i  Lo 
vouste  ?  j  Juy  .  .  .  que  pujansa  ! 

19  Doch  konnte  miuste  noch  auf  andre  "VVeise  entstanden 
sein.     mire  uste  >  mie  uste  (mie  und  mie)  ">  mieuste  (in 
dem  der  Mittelvokal  fiel)  >  miuste.    Vgl.  Castillo,  Saine- 
tes  i  85  i  Mie  uste  quien  !   (auf  derselben  Seite  zuvor  im 
Munde  derselben  Person  Mire  uste).     Del  Campo  y  dela 
Ciudad  135  mie  uste.     Cuent.  arag.  i  30  ]  Miduste  (sc.  el 
termometro)  alii  riba  !    52  j  Miela  (sc.  &  la  madre)  uste, 
ya  viene  !  Endlich  quiuste. 


Si  siftor;  miuste  esta  (sc.  capa).  n  10  Miuste  esa 
loca.  19  miuste  que  el  pobre  cura  tie  que  .  .  . 
Hist.  bat.  in  39.  Rev.  de  Aragon  vi  (1905) 
Secc.  gen.  234  b.  235  a.  Endlich  miste.  Fiir 
das  Andal.  s.  Schuchardt,  ZrP  v  314  :  "  im  An- 
dalusischen  [schwinden]  Consonanten  zwischen 
Vocalen  und  die  auf  diese  Weise  zusammenge- 
riickten,  ebenso  v»rie  die  ursprunglich  neben  ein- 
ander  stehenden  Vocale  werden  quantitativ  und 
qualitativ  mit  einander  verschmolzen  ;  so  lautet  z. 
B.  das  allerdings  sehr  haufig  gebrauchte  mire  u&ted 
wie  mihte."  Aus  Aragon  und  Santander  habe 
ich  angemerkt  :  Cuent.  arag.  i  25  Miste,  ahi 
vienen  cinco  u  seis  cantando.  84  Miste,  traigo 
unas  borrajas  que  se  comen  solas.  92  miste  \  Hist. 
bat.  i  6  Pos  miste,  .  .  .  Escenas  montanesas  323 
Miste  el  jierro  en  esta  nalga.  Tipos  y  Paisajes 
168  Miste,  don  pr  is  biter  o,  .  .  . 

/3)  guarte.  Castigos  e  Documentos  142  b  guarte 
mientra  las  (sc.  palabras)  dijeres.  177  b  Miofijo  : 
guarte  e  non  quieras  nin  consientas  que  .  .  .  Ro- 
drigo  de  Arana  (C.  Baena)  483  Guarte,  non  bivas 
en  tal  amargura  Commo  .  .  .  Encina  79  j  Guarte, 
guarte  :  confesarte  !  199  :  darte.  Celestina  (1900) 
157.  164  Guarte,  senor,  de  daTiar  lo  que  .  .  . 
Quiros  (Cane.  Gen.)  u  (1882)  196  a  :  parte. 
Torres  Naharro  i  336  :  arte  :  parte.  Valde"s,  DK- 
logo  de  la  Lengua  391,  22  :  "sincopamos  o  cor- 
tamos  algunos  verbos  quando  los  juntamos  con 
pronombre,  como  aqui  :  Haz  mat  y  guarte  por 
guardate."  Aucto  de  la  Paciencia  de  Job  (BAE 
LVIII)  32  a.  Autos  (Rouanet)  i  192,  299. 

Aus  neuerer  Zeit  stehen  mir  nur  arag.  Beispiele 
fur  aguarte  zur  Verfugung  :  Cuent.  arag.  i  7.  31. 
32.  ii  8.  85.  Rev.  de  Arag6n  in  40  b.  877.  Die 
Besprechung  der  Bedeutung  wu'rde  mich  hier  zu 
weit  fu'hren. 

Da  nacbtoniges  a  nicht  fallt,  so  ist  an  eine  rein 
lautliche  Entwicklung  nicht  zu  deuken. 

Vgl.  schliesslich  port,  guarte  Cornu  §  106  (S. 
957),  it.  guarti  (guarte)  Nannucci,  Analisi  cri- 
tica  dei  Verbi  it.  277  (wo  auch  prov.  und  afz. 
Beispiele),  fz.  gar  (gars'),  agar  (aga~)  Nyrop  n 
§  154. 

y)  tirte.  Encina  124  ;  tirte  d  huera  !  Gil  Vi- 
cente [Bohl  de  Faber]  59  Tirte  afuera  !  Lucas 
Fernandez  6.  21.  143  tirte  alia  \  152  Tirte  d' hi! 
Torres  Naharro  i  268  i  Tirt'  ahuera  !  Don  Quixote 
ii  47  (der  Doctor  Pedro  Rezio  de  Agiiero  spricht) 


102 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


soy  natural  de  vn  lugar  llamado  Tirteafuera  (s. 
dazu  Clemen  cin  v  437). 

Vgl.  port,  tirte  Cornu  §  106. 

6.  Einzelheiten 

a)  diz  in  der  Formel  diz  que  ist  uach  der  Mei- 
nung  eiuiger  Grammatiker  Verkiirzung  von  dicen. 
So  Valdes,  Dialogo  de  la  Lengua  391,  30  (wo  er 
von  vocablos  sincojiados  spriclit):  "  Tambieu  de- 
zimos  diz  que  por  dizen,  y  no  parece  mal."  So 
aucli  Cuervo,  Dice,  n  815  b  :  "En  sentido  inde- 
terminado  se  ha  usado  y  hoy  familiannente  se  usa 
diz  que  por  dicen  que."  Folgen  Beispiele  aus 
Garcilaso,  Castillejo,  etc.  Ein  alteres  Beispiel 
(Prim.  Cron.  Gen.  53  a  4)  bei  Hanssen  §  27,  14, 
der  dieselbe  Meinung  iiussert.  Ich  fiige  hinzu 
Prim.  Cron.  Gen.  49  b  52.  236  a  37.  567  a 
30.  699  b  26.  Weitere  Beispiele  aus  Lucas  Fer- 
nandez, Diego  Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  Lope  de  Rueda 
und  den  Autos  zu  gebeu,  scheint  mir  iiberflussig. 
Dagegen  mag  hier  noch  ein  Beispiel  aus  der  Feder 
eines  lebenden  Autors  in  einer  gelehrten  Zeit- 
schrift  stehen  :  P[az]  y  M[61ia],  Revista  de 
Archivos  Sept. -Oct.  de  1910,  237  Din  que  al  oir 
esto  algun  congresista  .  .  .  exclamd  muy  por  lo 
bajo  .  .  . 

Alleiu  wir  haben  es  garnicht  mit  einer  Verkiir- 
zung zu  tun,  nicht  mit  dicunt,  sondern  mit  dicit. 
Krenkel  in  235  (zu  El  Alcalde  de  Zalamea  790 
Esta  tarde  diz  que  ha  hecho  La  villa  eleccion  de 
oficio')  bezeichnet  richtig  diz  als  "  unpersonliche 
Form"  und  iibersetzt  "es  heisst,  man  sagt." 
(Ahnlich,  doch  weniger  bestimmt,  Moreira,  Rev. 
lus.  ix  359  :  "Usam-se  constantemente  entre  o 
povo  f rases  como  :  "diz  que  esta  a  sair  a  procis- 
sao,"  isto  e,  "alguem  diz,"  "diz-se"; — "diz  que 
sim"  por  "dizem  que  sim"  ou  " diz-se  que  sim"  ; 
— "diz  que  foi  assim"  em  logar  de  "diz-se  que 
foi  assim.") 

Wie  Diez  914  (=  m  208  Anm.)  langst  ge- 
zeigt,  wird  "im  Mlat.  dicit  oft  fur  dicitur  ge- 
setzt."  Unter  den  lat.  Beispielen  eins  aus  der 
Esp.  Sagr.20  Weiterelat.  Beispiele  fiir  dicat,  dicit 
bei  Lofstedt,  Spatlat.  Studien,  Uppsala  [1908] 
S.  55  aus  Filastrius,  Adversus  Aleatores,  etc. 

Diez  1.  c.  giebt  auch  ein  it.21  und  ein  prov.  Bei- 

29  Leider  ist  in  dem  Zitat  ein  Druckfehler. 
21  Nach  Tobler,  ZrP  n  150,  ist  dice  " ea  heisst"  eine 
dem  It.  "bis  heute  gelaufig  gebliebene  Wendung." 


spiel.  Mehr  prov.  Beispiele  und  Venveis  auf  ein 
afz.  Beispiel  bei  Levy,  Prov.  Suppl. — Worterb. 
n  245.  Ein  Beispiel  aus  Guiraut  von  Bornelh 
bei  Kolsen,  Festschrift  Tobler,  1905,  S.  215. 

Zudem  findet  sich  die  voile  Form  dize  hi  der- 
selben  Verwendung :  Prim.  Cron.  Gen.  668  b  49 
Ca  era  ya  Gutierr  Fernandez  omne  de  grand  edad 
et  onrrado  et  de  guardar  en  onrra  .  .  .  et  dize  aun 
que  era  Gutierr  Fernandez  omne  de  .  .  .  Rev.  de 
Aragon  in  169  a  (es  handelt  sich  urn  Bilder  in 
einer  Kirche)  La  que  primero  veris,  .  .  .  sera  una 
piana  mugrande  y  qu'ice  que  representa  al  Sinor 
cuando  .  .  .  169  b  Luego,  hay  en  otra pianica  tres 
cruces  :  en  una  de  ellas,  esta  clavao  el  Sinor,  en 
otra  el  mal  ladron  Cestas,  y  en  otra  el  guen  ladrdn 
Limas,  y  un  soldao  u  lo  que  sea,  qu'ice  que  se 
llama  Anginas,  y  que  .  .  .  Hist.  bat.  in  91  (zwei 
baturros  unterhalten  sich  u'ber  einen  alcalde")  Dice 
(—  "es  heisst,"  kaum  "er  sagt")  que  ha  sido 
toa  su  vida  arriero,  y  que  donde  el  este  no  roba 
naide  .  .  .  mas  que  el. 

diz  allein,  wie  in  Sig[iienza]  Vida  de  S.  Je- 
r[6nimo]  4.  13  (383)  Le  oian  de  buena  gana, 
porque  tenia,  diz,  mucho  donaire,  nennt  Cuervo, 
n  816  a,  selten.  Ich  mochte  hierherstellen  Rim. 
Pal.  299  Vna  ves  pidrdn  (sc.  los  mercadores)  cin- 
quenta  doblas  por  un  panno,  Si  vieren  queestades 
duro  o  entendedes  vuestro  danno,  Dis,  (1. :)  por 
treynta  vos  lo  do.  Ebenso  300  a,  obgleich  auch 
hier  die  Rede  in  der  ersten  Person  fortgeht. 
Dann  300  c  und  sicher  302  Non  se  tienen  por  con- 
tentos  por  vna  ves  se  doblar  Su  dinero,  mas  tres 
tanto  lo  quieren  amuchiguar  :  Dis  :  somos  en  peri- 
gros  por  la  tierra  o  por  mar  .  .  .  Ich  ubersetze  : 
"es  heisst,"  "die  (ihre)  Rede  ist." 

/3)  Kurzformen  von  parece. 

paece.  Rueda,  La  Reja  133,  4  me  paece  .  .  . 
que.  135,  9.  136,  4  No  paece  sino  que  algo  .  .  . 
Cane.  pan.  41  el  sol  paece  tu  cara.  46  le  paece  a 
las  gallinas.™  Ib.  le  paece  a  un  saco  e  melones. 

22  Vgl.  Espejo  64  E  si  con  ella  yoguiere  de  su  grado,  sa- 
quen  le  los  ajos  a  amos.  Lope  de  Kueda  II  (1896)  15 
iComo  If  llaman  a  aquestos  que  de  un  hombre  hacen  cuatro  ? 
Fernan  Caballero,  La  Familia  de  Alvareda  (CEC)  325 
Le  temo  a  las  cosas  que  Dios  permite  para  castigar  a  los  horn- 
bres.  Cant.  pop.  ill  11  Ylepreguntoa  las  olas.  150  Dile, 
niHa,  a  tus  labios  Que  no  me  hablen.  Weitere  Beispiele 
giebt  Cuervo,  Apuntaciones  209.  In  alien  geht  das  Pro- 
nomen  dem  Objekt  (Dativ  oder  Akkusativ)  vorher.  Ich 
mochte  die  Nichtkongruenz  so  erklaren,  das  der  Kedende 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


103 


Sotileza382.    384  flepaece  poco,  Sotilezal     467. 
Del  Campo  y  de  la  Ciudad  65.  68.  86. 

Nach  dem  §  2  a,  /3  Gesagten  ist  diese  Form  m. 
E.  nicht  auf  reiu  lautlichera  Wege  entstanden. 

paice  Cantar.  bat.  21.  61.  68.  Capulctos  38. 
44.  122.  Sotileza285. 

Ich  vermute  pdice,  wohl  unter  dem  Einfluss  des 
Inf.  paecer  Rev.  de  Aragon  I  9,  dann,  paicer  Ca- 
puletos  122  ;  cf.  ZrP  xxxiv  641  ;  xxxv  »  und 
pdices  :  Cant,  bat.  20  Me  pdices  por  comparanza 
manzanica.  27  Paices(l).  32  pdices.  51  Pdices  etc, 

paez,  leon."  Penas  arriba  46.  55.  223.  Ca- 
buSrniga  122.  123.  156.  Poes.  sel.  en  Dial.  ast. 
267  Paez  que  .  .  . 

pes  in  pesque.  Cuervo,  Apuntaciones  541 :  "De 
la  acentuacion  normal  paez  que,  usada  en  Asturias, 
sale  pesque  (dazu  in  einer  Anin.  Beispiele  aus  Pi- 
mentel  y  Vargas) ;  pero  con  mas  frecuencia  hemos 
oido pasque  ("pdsque  no  ha  venido"),  dislocado 
el  acento  :  pdez  que  (§  753)." 

Andere  Beispiele  fur  ae  >  e  :  quaraenta  >  qua- 
renta  Prim.  Cron.  Gen.  328  a  10.  334  a  33. 
336  a  35.  Cinquaesma  >  Cinquesma  F.  Juzgo  V. 
L.  23.  maestre  >  mestre  Alex.  1958  (M.  -F. 
2100  maestro).  Wokl  auch  traer^>trer  Poes. 
sel.  en  Dial.  ast.  78.  175. 

"  Dieser  Prozess  (ich  eigne  mir  eine  Ansicbt 
Schuchardt's,Vokal.  n  305,  an)  ist  Aveiter  Nichts, 
als  eine  Zusammenziebung  ;  der  betonte  Vokal 
.  .  .  iibertonte  den  uubetonten  .  .  .  bis  zu  dessen 
vollstiindigem  Verhallen." 

paz.  Diego  Sancbez  de  Badajoz  n  140  Paz  que 
.  .  .  Autos  i  141,  8  ;  9  ;  11  ;  12.  m  420,  268 
paz  honbre  sera  obrigado  a  creer  lo  que  .  .  .  536, 
712. 

im  Augenblick,  wo  er  das  Pronomen  ausspricht,  zwar  ein 
singulares  Objekt  im  Sinn  hat;  unmittelbar  darauf  schiebt 
sich  aber  in  seinem  Bewusstsein  ein  plurales  Objekt  an  die 
Stelle  des  singularen,  das  im  Grunde  nicht  mehr  als  das 
letztere  besagt.  Im  Espejo  heisst  es  kurz  vor  derzitierten 
Stelle  saquen  le  los  ojos  a  el  e  a,  eltd.  Cant.  pop.  in  11 
beginnt :  Todas  las  maflanas  i-oy  A  In  orillita  del  inar. 
150  wird  der  Redende  zuniichst  an  bocci  gedacht  haben. 
Noch  einfacher  ist  die  Vertretung  des  Singulars  durch 
einen  Plural  in  den  iibrigen  Beispielen.  Warum  aber 
immer  le  und  nicht  (bei  folgendem  Akk.)  einmal  lo  oder  la  ? 

M  Ein  weiteres  Beispiel  fur  de  >  cu  ist  maistro  Rev.  de 
Aragon  i  331  a.  Cantar.  bat.  88.  (Betreffsder  Aussprache 
maesiro  s.  Cuervo,  Apuntaciones  58. ) 

"Vgl.  Menendez  Pidal,  Manual  §  107,  4  (S.  191). 


pas.  Tirso,  La  Ventura  con  el  Nombre  (BAE 
v)  532  c  pas  u  que. 

Wohl  andal.  Ursprungs.  Vgl.  noch  uuter  pes. 

pae.  Del  Campo  y  de  la  Ciudad  66  Me  pae  que 
estos  ya  llevan  comia  mas  de  la  su  parte. 

Abfall  des  auslaut.  z  (das  vorher  zu  «  gewor- 
den)  ist  mir  nur  aus  dem  Andal.  bekannt.18 
Liesse  sich  an  Verlust  durch  Proklise  denken  ? 
Etwa,  wie  in  Roy  Diaz  ? 

Aus  diesem  pae  siud  endlich,  je  nachdem  a  oder 
e  den  Akzent  trug,  entstauden  pa  und  pe. 

pa  in  Pdmique  non  adelantamos  nada,  El  tiu 
Xuan,  Costumbres  asturianas,  Sama  de  Langres, 
1909,  S.  59. 

pe.  Alonso  Garrote,  El  Dialecto  vulgar  1  cone's 
hablado  en  Maragaterfa  y  Tierra  de  Astorga  63  : 
"  Sufre  una  sincopa  notable  pareceme,  que  se  pro- 
nuncia  peme  en  tod  a  Maragaterfa.  En  la  Ribera 
tambien,  y  adem&spe  que  por  parece  que." 

7.  Perf.  Plur.  3 

estuvion.  Cuent.  arag.  n  17  Preguntele  uste  al 
hipotecario,  que  estuvion  "  aqui  con  su  entenao  y 
los  afeitd  en  seis  menutos. 

hicibn.  Hist.  bat.  i  6  va  d  hacer  con  tu  mas  pe- 
rradas  que  hicion  los  judios  con  Nuestro  Sinor. 

Es  handelt  sich  um  -ieron  (im  folgenden  Ab- 
schnitt  um  -iera  (-uera)  etc.);  verkiirztes  -aron 
ist  mir  nicht  begegnet,  doch  s.  §  2  a,  ft. 

Die  Verba  sind  solche,  von  denen  die  Rede 
haufigen  Gebrauch  macht,  fast  ausschliesslich 
Hilfsverba  der  Zeit  und  des  Modus.  Nur  dies 
Moment  diirfte  fur  die  Entwicklung  in  Frage 
kommen. 

Ich  vermute  (cf.  §  8),  dass  sich  auch  estuvieon 
etc.  wird  belegen  lassen.  Und  zwar  in  Andalu- 
sien  ;  nur  der  erste  Typus  (estuvion)  ist  mir  in 

15  Hrsg. :  ' '  Pas,  paz,  paez,  paece,  contracciones  rusticas 
de  parece. ' ' 

18  Vgl.  Beatri  Cant.  pop.  i  62  (cf.  61).  be  =  kast.  ve* 
Cant.  pop.  ii  142.  iv  129.  cru  Cant.  pop.  n  315.  Vgl. 
ferner  die  Schreibungen  Rimas  inf.,  Rev.  Extrem.  iv 
125acd%.  127  a  item.  126  a  beg.  126bchejr.  Ib.  Orvg. 
366  b  item.  366  b  codornlg.— 125  a  alfereh.  Und  Schu- 
chardt,  ZrP  v  319  f. 

27  Eine  willkommene,  neuere  Parallele  (vgl.  Meyer- 
Liibke  III  §317)  zu  nous  chantions  avec  lui  =  nous  chan- 
tions,  moi  et  lui  Tobler,  V.  B.  in  16,  wo  zur  Literntur 
iiber  die  Frage  noch  Risop,  AnS  cvi  146,  nachzutragen 


104 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


Aragon  bekannt  ;  weder  jener  noch  dieser  schein- 
en  in  Leon  vorzukommen. 

8.    Impf.  Konj. 

dia.  Cane.  pan.  34  sijuera  (sc.  El  hoyiquio  de 
tu  barba)  sepoltura  /  yo  mesmo  me  did  la  muerte. 
Cuent.  arag.  n  90  No  se  pondria  uste  pa  que  yo  le 
did  las  ires  gueltas. 

estuviamos.  Cuent.  arag.  i  25  \Ni  que  estu- 
vidwos  en  Carnaval ! 

estuvidn.  Hist.  bat.  n  56  si  ...  no  estuvidn 
(sc.  los  papeles)  en  regla,  no  tenia  mas  remedio 
que  llevarte  al pueblo  atau  codo  con  codo. 

fuea.  Cant.  flam.  61  |  Quien  fuea  pajarito,  Y 
abriera  sus  alas  ! 

fua  1.  Cane.  pan.  31  como  si  yo  jud  Castillo. 
Cuent.  arag.  n  51  \Pues  ni  que  yo  fua  Weyler  ! 
Rev.  de  Aragon  iv  1,  185  a  j  Si  yo  jud  menistro 
.  .  .  !  vi  Secc.  gen.  83  a  Si  fud  yo  que  M, 

fuds.  Cuent.  arag.  n  59  \Pero,  hombre,  ni  que 
fuds  tonto  rematao  ! 

fud  3.  Cant.  bat.  37  si  to  esto  fud  mio.  Cuent. 
arag,  u  10  j  Como  si  Jud  una  mosca  \  29  j  Nique 
(!)  fud  ustejudio  !  Hist.  bat.  I  31. 

fudis.  Cuent.  bat.  n  9  \Si  nofudis  tan  lami- 
neros,  que  too  se  os  apetece  .  .  . 

fudn.  Cuent.  bat.  II  59  j,C6mo  se  puen  perder 
dos  burros  ?  \Ni  que  fudn  dos  sargantanas  !  *8 

hubiea.  Cant.  pop.  v  57  Si  no  hubid  sio  por  er 
joycte,  Rabo-largo  V  hubid  dao  la  muerte.  Zu 
hub'id  merkt  der  Hrsg.  an  :  "por  hubiera  :  hu- 
biea, hubid.  Como  quid  por  quiero  :  quieo,  quid.1' 

hubid  1.  Cant.  bat.  53.  Cantar.  bat.  48  Si  yo 
hubid  entrau  en  la  apuesta  hubid  ganau  .  .  . 
Cuent.  arag.  n  58  \Mds  me  calia  que  mi  padre 
m'  hubid  escachao  de  una  paid  pa  que  n'  hubid 
llegao  d  hombre  .  .  . !  65.  Hist.  bat.  I  25  Hi 
dicho  me  caso  y  me  caso.  Si  hubid  dicho  ifenezco 
soltero  ...  j  as't  mi  hubidn  traido  d  la  principesa 
de  Indias  !  \  Pa  su  aguela  ! 

hubid  3.  Cant.  bat.  17  guen  pelo  me  hubid 
lucido.  Cuent.  arag.  i  96.  n  58  (cf.  hubid  1.). 
84  j  Ojald  s1  hubid  muerto  \ 

hubiamos.    Cuent.  arag.  i  22  como  si  Vhubia- 
mos  cantao  el  rosario. 
hubidn.    cf.  hubid  1. 

18  =  kast.  lagartijas  Borao. 


pudia  3.  Cane.  pan.  40  j  quien  pudid  ponelle 
cortinilla  ar  sol ! 

pusiea  3.  Cant.  flam.  57  Ar  sub'i  la  escala,  Le 
ijo  ar  berdugo,  Que  le  quitara  la  tunica  blanca,  Lo 
pusiea  e  luto. 

quisid  1.  Cane.  pan.  25  Quisid  que  pudiera 
ser,  por  angun  arte  partirme.  32  Lasjarras  e  tu 
jarrero  zagala  quisid  yo  ser.  40.  43  Quisid  yo 
gorberme  pulga.  69.  Cant.  bat.  90.  Cantar.  bat. 
11  Yo  quisid  golveme  el  cura  con  quien  .  .  .  47. 
Cuent.  arag.  n  9.  70.  Rev.  de  Aragon  vi  Secc. 
gen.  83  b. 

quisids.  Cuent.  arag.  n  39  el  tempero  ha  sido 
malo,  y  este  ano  la  cosecha  pa  tu  no  la  quisids. 

quisid  3.  Cantar.  bat.  55  Te  lo  aviso  por  si 
acaso  quisid  emplealo  tu  padre. 

quisidn.  Cane.  pan.  38  Si  .  .  .  los picapedreros 
quisidn  picallo  (sc.  el  ma'rmol). 

supias.  Cuent.  arag.  n  86  si  tu  supids  lo  que  es 
mi  mujer  .  .  . 

tuvid  1.  Cuent.  arag.  n  51  Pues  yo,  si  tuvid 
estanco,  lo  iendria  pa  fumar  de  balde. 

tuvid  3.  Cant.  bat.  94  Eeconcho  quien  tuvid 
veinte  anos  menos  !  Cuent.  arag.  n  86  quien  tuvid 
un  clavico  como  ese  ! 

tuvidis.  Cuent.  arag.  u  56  como  si  no  tuvidis 
Matadero. 

K.    PlETSCH. 

University  of  Chicago. 


CERTAIN  SOURCES  OF  SIR  JOHN 
OLD  CASTLE. 

In  speaking  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle  in  the  intro- 
duction to  The  Shakespeare  Apocrypha  Mr.  C.  F. 
Tucker  Brooke  says  :  ' '  The  first  part  of  Oldcastle 
was  beyond  question  composed  for  The  Lord  Ad- 
miral's Company  as  a  reply  to  the  successful  Fal- 
staff  plays,  which  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  Servants 
had  been  acting. " '  To  support  this  assertion  Mr. 
Brooke  mentions  the  prologue  to  Oldcastle,  the 
gambling  scene  between  the  King  and  Sir  John 

1  The  Shakespeare  Apocrypha  .  .  .  Edited  .  .  .  by  C.  F. 
Tucker  Brooke,  B.  Litt.,  Oxford,  1908.  Intro,  p.  xxvii- 
xxviii.  (All  my  references  to  Sir  John  Oldcasile  are  to 
this  edition. ) 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


105 


of  "Wrotham,  and  certain  explicit  references  to 
the  wild  exploits  of  the  King  as  Prince  of  Wales. 
That  the  authors  of  the  first  part  of  Oldcastle 
utilized  Henry  IV  and  Henry  Fto  a  considerable 
extent  is  easily  shown  ;  and  it  is  equally  plain 
that  they  also  drew  upon  the  three  Henry  VI 
plays  for  certain  hints  for  passages  in  the  play. 

In  the  first  place  Sir  John  of  Wrotham  is 
undoubtedly  based  upon  Falstaff.  They  have 
the  same  vices,  the  same  doubtful  honesty,  and 
even  mistresses  with  the  same  Christian  names — 
Doll  and  Doll  Tearsheet,  respectively. 

Next,  taking  up  the  resemblances  to  the  Shake- 
spearian plays  in  order,  we  come  first  in  Act  I, 
Sc.  1  of  Oldcastle  to  a  passage  which  recalls  Act 
I,  Sc.  3  of  the  First  Part  of  King  Henry  VI.  In 
the  latter  play,  in  which  the  scene  is  before  the 
Tower,  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  and  his  servants 
enter  and  find  themselves  barred  from  the  Tower 
by  order  of  the  Cardinal- Bishop  of  Winchester. 
Almost  immediately  the  Bishop  enters  with  his 
servants.  A  quarrel  between  him  and  the  Dake 
ensues,  and  they  come  to  blows.  The  servants 
follow  their  masters'  example.  In  the  tumult 
the  Lord  Mayor  enters  with  his  officers,  and 
attempts  to  pacify  the  combatants.  He  does  not 
succeed  in  doing  so  until  he  causes  the  riot  act  to 
be  read.  When  this  action  is  taken  the  Duke 
and  the  Bishop  with  their  followers  withdraw 
from  the  stage. 

In  Oldcastle,  Act  I,  Sc.  1  is  laid  in  a  street  in 
Hereford  during  the  Assizes.  Lord  Herbert  and 
Lord  Powis  and  several  of  their  followers  enter 
and  fight,  the  two  noblemen  heading  the  two 
parties.  During  the  fight  the  Sheriff  of  Hereford 
enters  and  attempts  to  disperse  the  rioters,  but  he 
is  unable  to  do  so,  and  is  finally  driven  from  the 
stage.  The  Mayor  of  Hereford  and  his  officers 
then  enter ;  the  former  commands  peace  and 
causes  the  riot  act  to  be  read,  but  unlike  the 
similar  case  in  Henry  VI,  no  effect  is  produced 
by  it,  and  so  the  battle  continues.  Lord  Herbert 
is  at  last  wounded  and  Powis  then  flees.  The 
Sheriff  enters  with  reinforcements — the  Judges  of 
Assize  in  their  robes — and  rescues  such  of  Lord 
Powis' s  followers  as  remain.  The  rest  of  the 
scene  is  occupied  with  low  comedy  and  with  an 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  quarrel  between 
the  two  lords.  There  is  one  speech  of  Herbert,  — 


"  Thy  heart's  best  blood  shall  pay  the  loss  of  mine," 

that  is  probably  founded  on  a  line  of  Winchester 
in  Henry  VI— 

"Thy  heart-blood  I  will  have  for  this  day's  work." 

The  next  indebtedness  is  to  be  found  in  Old- 
castle (Act  II,  Sc.  1),  is  to  Henry  V,  Act  V,  Sc. 
1.  Fluellen  and  Gower  enter,  the  former  with  a 
leek  in  his  hat  ;  and  in  response  to  a  question 
from  Gower  he  says  that  he  will  force  Pistol  to 
eat  it.  Pistol  enters  swaggering  and  is  accosted 
by  Fluellen.  The  latter  comes  to  the  point  and 
bids  Pistol  eat  the  leek.  He  refuses  contemptu- 
ously, Then  Fluellen  beats  him  and  continues  at 
short  intervals  to  do  so,  all  the  time  discoursing 
upon  the  virtues  of  the  leek,  until  it,  and  even  its 
skin,  is  eaten.  Then  Fluellen  gives  Pistol  a 
groat  with  which  to  mend  his  broken  pate,  while 
Gower  reproves  him  for  his  previous  actions.  In 
Oldcastle  a  summoner  (corresponding  to  Pistol) 
enters  before  Lord  Cobham's  (Sir  John  Oldcas- 
tle's)  house,  with  a  process  from  the  Bishop  of 
Rochester's  court  to  serve  upon  Oldcastle.  Har- 
poole,  the  faithful  servant  of  Oldcastle,  appears 
and  learns  the  summoner' s  business.  He  examines 
the  parchment  which  the  officer  has  and  then 
comes  to  his  point — the  forcing  of  its  bearer  to 
eat  it.  The  officer,  who  is,  at  his  entrance,  quite 
assured  in  bearing,  attempts  to  brave  it  out.  Har- 
poole  beats  him,  however,  until,  protesting  very 
vigorously — as  does  Pistol,  — he  eats  the  summons. 
While  he  does  so,  Harpoole  ironically  praises  its 
toothsomeness.  As  Fluellen  makes  Pistol  eat  the 
skin  of  the  leek,  so  does  Harpoole  force  the  sum- 
moner to  eat  the  waxen  seal  on  the  parchment. 
After  the  document  has  been  disposed  of,  Har- 
poole calls  the  butler  and  orders  a  pot  of  beer  for 
the  summoner,  with  which  to  wash  down  his 
lunch.  The  beer  having  been  drunk,  the  officer 
is  dismissed,  Harpcole  in  the  meantime  giving 
him  certain  directions  concerning  his  future 
conduct. 8 

'Schelling  (The  English  Chronicle  Play,  pp.  132,  154) 
considers  Sc.  3,  Act  I  of  Oeorge  a  Greene  the  source  of  this 
incident  in  Oldcastle.  In  the  first-mentioned  play  George 
a  Greene  forces  Mannering,  an  emissary  from  the  rebel 
Earl  of  Kendal,  to  swallow  the  three  seals  attached  to  his 
commission.  It  is  likely  that  Oeorge  a  Greene  was  the 
original  source  of  the  idea  ;  but  if  Henry  V,  as  I  think  it 


106 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


In  Act  III,  Sc.  1  of  Oldcastle,  Richard  Earl  of 
Cambridge  recounts  the  claim  of  his  family — that 
of  York — to  the  English  throne.  This  scene  is 
closely  parallel  to  Act  II,  Sc.  2,  Second  Part  of 
King  Henry  VI,  in  which  the  Duke  of  York — 
son  of  Cambridge — lays  his  claim  to  the  throne 
before  Salisbury  and  Warwick.*  The  parallel  is 
a  very  close  one,  the  chief  difference  being  that  in 
Henry  VI  the  brief  history  of  the  rise  of  the  house 
of  Lancaster  precedes  the  pedigree  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  whereas  in  Oldcastle  Cambridge's  pedigree 
is  given  first. 

Murley,  the  rebel,  and  his  followers  enter  in 
Act  III,  Sc.  1  of  Oldcastle.  They  are  a  sort  of 
mob  which  is  much  like  the  "army"  of  Jack 
Cade,  which  is  first  introduced  in  the  Second  Part 
of  Henry  VI,  Act  IV,  Sc.  2.  Here  George  Bevis 
and  John  Holland  enter  discussing  the  rebellion 
which  has  just  broken  out;  to  them  enter  Cade 
and  his  men.  In  the  other  play  the  whole  force 
enters  at  the  opening  of  the  scene.  Murley  is 
much  concerned  as  to  who  will  dub  him  knight. 
Cade  is  worried  about  the  same  point,  but  for  only 
a  moment ;  his  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is  by  dub- 
bing himself.  There  are  no  further  specific  re- 
semblances in  the  scenes  pertaining  to  the  rebel- 
lions, but  the  general  likeness  of  them  is  consid- 
erable. 

Sir  John  of  Wrotham,  whose  intended  likeness 
to  Falstaff  has  been  mentioned,  appears  first  in 
Act  II,  Sc.  1  of  Oldcastle.  Certain  of  the  comedy 
scenes  in  which  he  takes  part  are  modeled  upon 
similar  ones  in  the  First  Part  of  King  Henry  IV, 
and  in  the  Second  Part  of  King  Henry  IV;  for 
instance,  in  Act  III,  Sc.  4  he  and  Doll  halt  the 
King  and  rob  him.*  It  is  in  this  scene  that  refer- 

was,  was  produced  a  short  time  before  Oldcastle  and  was 
the  immediate  provocation  of  it,  then  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  Shakespeare's  scene  was  the  one  built  upon. 
A  careful  comparison  of  the  three  scenes  in  question  will 
show  only  the  germ  of  both  the  later  ones  in  that  in 
George  a  Greene,  while  there  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  close 
correspondence  between  that  in  Henry  V  and  that  in 
Oldcastle. 

3  Fleay  lias  •  noticed  the  similarity  of  these  two  scenes 
(Chronicle  of  the  English  Drama,  Vol.  II,  p.  117). 

*Schelling  suggests  this  indebtedness  of  Oldcastle  to 
Shakespeare  ;  and  in  addition  to  it  that  of  the  gambling 
scene  between  King  Henry  to  King  Henry  V,  Act  IV, 
Sc.  1,  in  which  the  King  meets  the  soldiers  in  his  tour  of 
the  English  camp.  (Elizabethan  Drama,  Vol.  II,  pp.  278-9  ; 
The  English  Chronicle  Play,  pp.  132-3.) 


ences  to  Falstaff,  Peto,  and  Powis  and  to  the 
adventures  of  the  King  in  their  company  are 
made.  Sir  John's  scenes  with  Doll  should  be 
compared  with  Falstaff 's  scenes  with  Mrs.  Quickly 
and  Doll  Tearsheet.  Lines  36  to  121  of  Act  III, 
Sc.  4  of  Oldcastle  should  be  compared  with  Act 
III,  Sc.  2,  First  Part  of  King  Henry  IV. 

Immediately  after  his  robbery  (which  is  referred 
to  above)  the  King  begins  to  game  with  several  of 
his  lords  (Oldcastle,  Act  IV,  Sc.  1).  Sir  John 
enters  and  not  knoAving  the  King,  asks  admittance 
to  the  game,  and  this  being  granted,  during  its 
progress,  treats  the  King  very  familiarly.  In 
Henry  V,  Act  IV,  Sc.  1,  the  King  (Henry  V,  as 
in  Oldcastle~),  while  going  about  the  English  camp 
in  disguise  on  the  night  before  Agincourt,  meets 
three  soldiers,  one  of  whom,  William,  discusses 
with  the  King  the  English  chances  in  the  coming 
battle,  and  defends  Henry  against  his  own  criti- 
cisms of  himself.  The  surprise  of  the  priest  when 
he  discovers  the  true  quality  of  the  King  (in  the 
latter  part  of  Act  IV,  Sc.  1  of  Oldcastle^)  and  that 
of  Williams  upon  the  same  discovery  (Henry  V, 
Act  IV,  Sc.  8)  are  somewhat  alike,  but  the  char- 
acters of  the  two  men  are  so  different  as  to  pro- 
hibit any  close  resemblance  in  conduct.  Their 
pleas  for  mercy  are  not  dissimilar. 

Act  IV,  Sc.  3  of  Oldcastle  opens  in  the  en- 
trance of  a  tavern  near  St.  Albans.  Ostlers  and 
carriers  are  the  principal  characters  introduced. 
Act  II,  Sc.  1  of  the  First  Part  of  King  Henry  IV 
opens  in  an  inn-yard  in  Rochester,  Various  inn- 
servants  and  carriers  are  the  chief  figures.  In  the 
scene  first  mentioned  Gadshill  is  attempting  to  get 
what  information  he  can  about  the  motions  of  the 
travelers  whom  he  is  to  aid  Prince  Henry,  Falstaff, 
and  the  rest  to  rob.  In  the  other  play  the  scene 
is  closely  connected  with  one  following  in  which 
search  is  made  for  Oldcastle  and  his  wife,  who  are 
being  pursued. 

In  Act  V,  Sc.  8  of  Oldcastle,  Sir  John  Oldcastle 
and  his  wife,  being  closely  followed  by  their  ene- 
mies, take  refuge  in  a  wood  near  St.  Albans.  Here 
they  lie  down  upon  the  ground  to  rest.  Sir  Rich- 
ard Lee,  the  owner  of  the  land,  appears  searching 
for  the  murderer  of  his  son.  They  come  upon  the 
two  fugitives  and  arrest  them  upon  suspicion  of 
their  having  been  concerned  in  the  murder.  This 
scene  is  reminiscent  of  Act  IV,  Sc.  10,  Second 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


107 


Part  of  King  Henry  VI,  in  which  Jack  Cade 
takes  refuge  in  Iden's  garden.  He  is  exhausted 
by  rapid  flight  and  by  hunger  and  is  looking  for 
herbs  with  which  to  appease  his  appetite.  Iden, 
the  owner  of  the  garden,  discovers  him,  and  after 
a  fight  which  is  provoked  by  Cade,  kills  him. 
Furthermore  in  this  scene  Lady  Oldcastle  says  to 
her  husband  : 

"  Lay  then  your  head  upon  my  lap." 

Mortimer  (Act  III,  Sc.  1,  First  Part  of  King 
Henry  IV}  is  thus  addressed  by  his  wife — Glen- 
dower  interpreting — 

"On  the  wanton  rushes  lay  you  down 
And  rest  your  gentle  head  upon  her  lap." 

The  points  of  resemblance  cited  above  are  suffi- 
cient, I  think,  to  prove  that  what  may  reasonably 
be  considered  among  the  most  effective  passages 
and  characters  in  the  six  plays  of  Shakespeare 
and  his  possible  collaborators  which  deal  with  the 
York-Lancaster  dissensions— embryo  and  other- 
wise— Were  closely  imitated  and  drawn  upon  by 
the  authors 5  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle. 


R.  S.  FORSYTHE. 


University  of  Kansas. 


A  GERMAN  TRANSLATION  OF  PAS- 
SAGES IN  THOMSON'S  SEASONS 

In  1745  Bodmer  brought  out  an  edition  of  Pyra 
and  Lange's  poems  under  the  title  :  Thirsis  uud 
Damons  Freundschaftliche  Lieder.  In  the  volume, 
as  will  be  recalled,  was  included  an  anonymous 
German  translation  of  three  episodes  from  Thom- 
son' s  Seasons  bearing  the  respective  titles  :  Lavi- 
nia,  Damon,  and  Celadon  und  Amalia.  The  only 
German  text  accessible  to  me  is  that  of  the  second 
edition,  which  was  prepared  by  Lange  in  1749.1 
Referring  to  the  translation  in  question,  Lange 
says  in  his  preface  :  "  [ich]  habe  die,  der  ersten 
Ausgabe  angehangten  Erzahlungen  auch  bei  die- 

5 1  have  followed  Henslowe  in  assigning  Oldcastle  to 
several  authors.  He  gives  as  collaborators,  Munday, 
Dray  ton,  Wilson,  and  Hathway. 

'Cf.  Deutsche  Lilteraturdenkmale  d«s  18.  und  19.  Jahr- 
hunderts,  No.  22  (1885),  p.  153  ff. 


ser  Auflage  gelassen,"  from  which  I  infer  that  he 
retained  them  in  their  original  form. 

On  the  German  version  of  these  three  passages 

1  O 

Theodor  Vetter  in  the  Bodmer  Denhchrift,*  com- 
ments as  follows  : 

"1.  Lavinia=Thomsons  Autumn,  177-310. 
Nur  wenig  weggelassen  ;  im  Ganzen 
genau  und  gut  iibersetzt. 

2.  Damon— Thomsons -Summer,  1268  bis  ca. 

1330.     Sehr  frei,  mit  Weglassungen 
und  Abiinderungen. 

3,  Celadon  und  Amalia^Thomsons  Sum- 

mer, 1171-1222.     Genau  iibersetzt." 

It  was  probably  an  oversight  on  the  part  of 
Vetter  when  he  attempted  to  compare  the  German 
translation  with  the  wrong  English  version,  as  he 
seems  to  have  done.  Thomson,  as  is  well  known, 
made  several  revisions  of  the  Seasons,  and  as  a 
consequence  it  is  a  somewhat  puzzling  matter  to 
follow  the  changing  text  of  the  various  earlier 
editions  of  the  poem. 

A  word  about  those  editions  of  the  Seasons 
which  primarily  concern  us  here  will  perhaps  not 
be  amiss.  According  to  Zippel5  the  quarto  edi- 
tion, which  appeared  in  1730,  was  the  first  col- 
lected edition  of  the  Seasons.  In  the  same  year 
another  edition,  in  octavo,  appeared ;  the  text, 
save  for  six  additional  lines  in  Winter,  being 
identical  with  that  of  the  quarto.  1738  saw 
another  edition,  the  text  of  which  is  practically 
the  same  as  that  of  the  octavo,  but  the  new  text 
of  the  two  editions  of  1744  contains  "addi- 
tions of  above  one  thousand  new  lines."  For  the 
reading  of  Summer  as  contained  in  this  expanded 
version  I  depend  upon  Zippel's  critical  edition 
of  the  Seasow  in  which  the  text  of  Summer 
of  1744  is  reproduced  in  full  (cf.  Zippel,  p. 
61  ff. ) ;  the  variants  of  Autumn  (1744)  are  given 
by  Zippel  in  footnotes.  For  the  purpose  of  com- 
parison I  consult  the  first  edition  of  the  collected 
Seasons,  i.  e.,  the  text  of  1730  which,  as  already 
noted,  is  virtually  identical  with  that  of  1738. 

*Joh.  Jak.  Bodmer.  Denkschrift  zum  C.  C.  Geburtstag. 
Zurich,  1900,  p.  377. 

'Otto  Zippel  :  Thomson's  Seasons.  Critical  edition. 
"  Being  a  reproduction  of  the  original  texts,  with  all  the 
various  readings  of  the  later  editions,  historically  ar- 
ranged." Berlin,  1908.  Cf.  p.  x. 


108 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


Vetter  does  not  indicate  which  edition  of  the 
Seasons  he  had  before  him.  At  first  sight  it 
seemed  natural  to  suppose,  however,  that  it  was 
one  or  the  other  of  the  two  parallel  editions  of 
1744.  That — chronologically  at  any  rate — might 
well  have  been  the  case ;  but,  strange  to  say,  I 
discovered  upon  examination  that  Vetter' s  num- 
bering of  the  verses  agrees  with  the  edition  of 
I  746.  This  would,  of  course,  confront  us  with  a 
situation  at  once  quite  impossible,  chronologically, 
inasmuch  as  the  first  edition  of  the  German  trans- 
lation came  out  in  the  year  previous,  viz.,  1745. 
The  question  of  the  1746  edition — whether  this 
particular  edition  was  used  by  Vetter  or  not — 
may  therefore  be  dismissed  forthwith  ;  this  text, 
however,  compared  with  that  of  1744,  contains 
all  told  but  eleven  additional  lines,* so  that  a  con- 
fusion of  these  two  editions  would,  in  the  question 
before  us,  be  of  no  great  consequence.  Whether 
either  of  the  editions  of  1744,  however,  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  basis  of  the  translator's  version, 
is  the  important  question.  This  now  remains  to 
be  examined. 

Comparing  the  German  version  of  the  Lavinia 
passage  with  the  first  (1730)  edition  of  the  col- 
lected Seasons,  I  find  that  there  are  no  omissions 
whatever,  and  this,  oddly  enough,  contrary  to  the 
commentator' s  statement :  ' '  Nur  wenig  wegge- 
lassen."  How  shall  we  explain  the  discrepancy  ? 
In  the  edition  of  1744  we  read,  e.  g.  {Autumn, 
11.  185-9): 

*'  By  solitude  and  deep  surrounding  shades, 
But  more  by  bashful  modesty,  concealed. 
Together  thus  they  shunn'd  the  cruel  scorn 
Which  virtue,  sunk  to  poverty,  would  meet 
From  giddy  fashion  and  low-minded  pride." 

Except  for  a  variant  of  the  third  line  above,  this 
entire  passage  is  one  of  the  poet's  many  later  ex- 
pansions, and  as  such  is,  of  course,  lacking  in  the 
1730  edition  ;  but  it  is  important  to  note  that  it 
is  also  wanting  in  the  German  version  before  us. 
Again,  in  Autumn,  11.  206-7  (ed.  1744),  the 

passage 

"  their  best  attire, 
Beyond  the  pomp  of  dress" 

is  lacking  in  the  first  edition,  and  this,  too,  we  do 
not  find  in  the  German  translation.     Compared 

1  Ibid. ,  p.  xi. 


with  the  edition  of  1730  the  following  passages  in 
Autumn  (1744)  show  later  variations  or  expan- 
sions :  11.  210-17,  239-40,  248,  288,  291-4,  and 
in  each  case  the  German  version  agrees  in  every 
detail  with  the  text  of  1730  and  not  with  that  of 
1744,  This  partial  list  of  examples  adduced  from 
the  Lavinia  passage  will  suffice  to  show  why  the 
comment  ' '  Nur  wenig  weggelassen ' '  needs  revi- 
sion. To  go  at  once  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  the 
situation  seems  to  be  this  :  it  was  not  the  translator 
who  omitted  anything,  but  Thomson  who  made 
additions  in  a  later  version  ;  and  these  later  addi- 
tions are  lacking  in  the  German  translation  simply 
because  they  are  lacking  in  the  English  text  of 
1730. 

But  it  is  in  connection  with  the  Damon  episode 
that  the  Swiss  scholar  permitted  himself — from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case — to  be  betrayed  into 
a  more  egregious  error.  "Sehr  frei,  mit  Weglas- 
sungen  und  Abanderungen, ' '  in  his  judgment  here. 
But  it  is  simply  the  poet's  own  radical  alterations 
and  extensive  additions  in  the  later  text  which 
seem  to  have  misled  him  to  hold  the  anonymous 
but  none  the  less  able  and  conscientious  translator 
accountable  for  the  apparent  discrepancy.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  translation  of  this  particular 
episode,  instead  of  being  "very  free,  with  omis- 
sions and  alterations,"  seems  quite  as  close  as  a 
metrical  translation  can  well  be  and  is,  moreover, 
without  any  omissions  whatsoever.  If  it  were  my 
purpose,  at  this  time,  to  present  a  detailed  study 
instead  of  a  mere  brief  note,  I  should  deem  it  nec- 
essary to  quote  the  two  variant  Damon  passages, 
of  1730  and  1744,  in  full, — so  widely  does  Thom- 
son's own  later,  revised  form  of  the  episode  differ 
from  his  earlier  version.  Indeed,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  by  reducing  the  number  of  char- 
acters in  the  Damon  episode  and  by  otherwise 
changing  the  situation,  Thomson,  in  the  later 
version,  gives  us  an  altogether  new  story.  Never- 
theless—  to  repeat  for  the  sake  of  emphasis  — the 
German  version  clearly  and  closely  follows  the 
earlier  form  of  the  episode  as  found  in  the  vir- 
tually identical  editions  of  1730  and  1738. 

Of  the  German  version  of  the  Celadon  and 
Amelia  episode  the  commentator  says  :  ' '  Genau 
iibersetzt."  With  respect  to  the  text  of  1730 
this  would  be  quite  true  ;  hardly,  however,  with 
reference  to  the  later  expanded  version,  for,  aside 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


109 


from  a  number  of  minor  verbal  differences,  there 
is  at  least  one  passage  in  the  later  (1744)  English 
edition  [also  in  the  ed.  of  1746]  which  is  wanting 
both  in  the  earlier  version  and  in  the  German 
translation.  The  passage  includes  11.  1184-6  (ed. 
1744): 

"  and  where  its  mazes  stray' d, 
While  with  each  other  blest,  creative  love 
Still  bade  eternal  Eden  smile  around." 

Perhaps  it  will  be  helpful  to  compare  at  least 
one  passage  from  the  Celadon  and  Amelia  episode 
of  1744  with  the  corresponding  passage  as  found 
in  the  text  of  1730. 

Summer,  11,  1206-8,  ed.  1744  : 

"  From  his  void  embrace, 
Mysterious  heaven  !  that  moment,  to  the  ground 
A  blacken' d  corse,  was  struck  the  beauteous  maid." 

Summer,  11.  937-9,  ed.  1730  : 

' '  From  his  void  embrace, 
Mysterious  heaven  !  that  moment,  in  a  heap 
Of  pallid  ashes  fell  the  beauteous  maid." 

The  translator's  version  here,  as  indeed  through- 
out the  three  episodes,  faithfully  follows  the  text, 
though  not  necessarily  the  edition,  of  1730  for,  as 
I  have  already  pointed  out,  the  edition  of  1738  is 
virtually  parallel  with  it.  The  German  version 
of  the  passage  just  quoted  reads  as  follows  : 

"Aus  seinen  Armen  fid,  o  des  geheimen  Schicksals  ! 
Das  schone  Kind  denselben  Augenblick 
Jn  einen  Aschehaufen. ' ' 

Proceeding  on  the  assumption  that  for  the  pur- 
pose in  hand  the  text,  but  to  repeat,  not  neces- 
sarily the  edition,  of  1730  is  to  be  regarded  as 
authoritative,  I  renumber  the  three  passages  as 
follows  : 

1.  The  Lavinia  passage  =  Autumn,  11. 184-307. 

2.  The  Damon  passage  =  Summer,  11.  980-1037. 

3.  The  Celadon  und  Amalia  passage  —  Summer, 
11.  897-944. 

A  glance  will  show  that  this  numbering  differs 
in  each  case  from  that  of  Vetter. 


C.  H.  IBERSHOFF. 


Harvard  University. 


THE  SUITORS   IN  THE  PARLEMENT 
OF  FOULES  AGAIN 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  express  my  appreciation  of 
the  article  by  Mr.  Samuel  Moore  of  Harvard  in 
the  January  number  of  the  Notes,  because  his 
facts  do,  in  some  sense,  reenforce  the  case  I  pre- 
sented in  the  July  number  of  Modern  Philology. 
I  am  pleased  also,  that  he  so  fully  accepts  the 
conclusions  of  that  paper.  Yet  I  should  like  to 
correct  one  point  in  which  Mr.  Moore  seems  to  do 
my  paper  something  of  injustice.  It  occurs  in  the 
following  passage  : 

' '  Professor  Emerson  decides  without  hesitation 
that  the  second  eagle  represents  Friedrich  of 
Meissen.  His  chief  reason  for  the  decision  is  that 
it  would  be  'a  strange  procedure  on  Chaucer's 
part  to  introduce,  as  a  rival  suitor  of  Richard,  one 
whose  betrothal  had  been  broken  off  as  early  as 
1373,  at  least  seven,  perhaps  nine  years  before 
the  time  of  the  poem. '  He  offers  no  evidence  of 
the  breaking  off  of  the  earlier  match." 

A  reading  of  the  original  article  *  will  show  that 
in  these  sentences  I  am  calling  attention  to  Pro- 
fessor Koch's  reference  to  "the strange  procedure 
on  Chaucer's  part,"  and  his  emphasis  upon  the 
possible  lack  of  knowledge  regarding  affairs  in 
Germany.1  My  real  argument  begins  with  the 
next  sentence,  which  Mr.  Moore  does  not  quote  : 
'  'At  any  rate  Chaucer  would  scarcely  have  been 
likely  to  use  this  long-past  betrothal,  if  there  had 
been  a  more  active  suitor  in  the  field."  I  then 
present  at  length  the  extremely  active  three, 
Friedrich  of  Meissen,  Charles  of  France,  and 
Richard  II.  My  argument,  then,  is  in  the  activity 
of  these  thr.ee,  and  their  closer  relation  in  time 
than  any  other  suitor  who  has  yet  been  named. 
If  accepted  at  all,  the  reasoning  carries  with  it  the 
exclusion  of  any  fourth  suitor,  especially  one  in 
whose  case  no  activity  has  yet  been  proved  for 
almost  ten  years  before  Anne's  marriage. 

To  put  the  matter  in  another  way,  in  his  poem 
Chaucer  had  limited  the  suitors  of  Anne  to  three. 
The  three  chronologically  nearest  her  marriage 
were  those  I  have  just  named.  They,  also,  are 
logically  the  only  ones  to  be  considered,  because  of 


1  Modern  Philology,  vin,  47. 
1  Essays  on  Chaucer,  407-8. 


110 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


their  active  relations  in  the  matter  extending  up 
to  the  marriage  of  Anne,  and  in  the  case  of  Fried- 
rich  of  Meissen  far  beyond.  By  the  limits  of  the 
problem,  therefore,  as  well  as  on  chronological 
and  logical  grounds,  the  serious  consideration  of 
any  other  than  these  three  suitors  seemed  to  me 
then,  as  it  seems  to  me  now,  quite  unnecessary. 
To  argue  further  for  the  exclusion  of  William  of 
Baiern-Holland  seemed  a  work  of  supererogation. 

On  the  other  hand  if,  in  the  future,  any  one 
should  attempt  to  displace  Friedrich  of  Meissen  or 
one  of  the  other  suitors,  and  again  introduce  Wil- 
liam of  Baieru-Hollaud,  he  must  reckon  with  the 
data  Mr.  Moore  has  brought  forward.  Or  if  any 
one  should  wish  to  show  why  Chaucer  chose  three 
rather  than  four  suitors,  he  might  find  the  reason 
in  Mr.  Moore's  added  facts.  Until  one  of  these 
courses  is  adopted  I  cannot  see  that  these  facts  are 
39  necessary  to  my  argument  as  Mr.  Moore  seems 
to  think. 

Another  evidence  of  friendly  relations  between 
the  reigning  houses  of  England  and  Hainault 
might  have  been  cited  by  Mr.  Moore.  It  is  earlier 
than  the  account  of  the  visit  of  Anne  to  the  duke 
and  duchess  of  Brabant  on  her  journey  to  Eng- 
land, and  I  have  used  it,  together  with  Mr. 
Moore's  second  quotation  from  Froissart  (p.  10), 
in  the  paper  to  which  I  referred  in  a  footnote  to 
my  Modern  Philology  article,  that  on  the  date  of 
the  Knight's  Tale.  That  article  has  been  in  type 
since  last  summer,  but  is  not  yet  published.8  The 
additional  reference  is  in  Froissart' s  Chronicles, 
n,  ch.  xliii  (Johnes,  I,  593).  It  tells  how,  when 
Sir  Simon  Burley  started  from  Germany  to  nego- 
tiate for  the  hand  of  Anne, — he  was  appointed 
June  12,  1380  (Rymer's  Fcedera,  vn,  257),— he 
visited  the  duke  and  duchess  of  Brabant  at  Brus- 
sels, and  there  met  duke  Albert  of  Hainault  and 
other  lords  who  had  gathered  for  a  ' '  great  feast 
of  tilts  and  tournaments."  Sir  Simon  made 
known  his  errand,  and 

"The  duke  and  duchess  of  Brabant  .  .  .  were 
much  rejoiced  on  hearing  the  cause  of  his  journey 
into  Germany,  and  said  it  would  be  a  good  match 
between  the  king  of  England  and  their  niece. 
They  gave  Sir  Simon  Burley,  on  his  departure, 
special  letters  to  the  emperor,  to  assure  him  they 
approved  very  much  of  this  marriage." 

8  In  January,  when  this  was  written.  It  has  since 
appeared. 


If  Duke  Albert  of  Hainault  had  wished  to 
oppose  the  betrothal  of  Kichard  and  Anne  on 
account  of  his  son,  here  was  ample  opportunity 
just  as  the  negotiations  were  beginning.  The 
absence  of  the  slightest  evidence  connecting  that 
son  with  Anne  after  1373  shows  how  unnecessary 
it  is  even  to  consider  William  of  Baiern-Holland, 
as  compared  with  the  indispensable  Friedrich  of 
Meissen. 

Still,  in  either  case,  the  conclusions  are  the 
same,  and  the  further  data  regarding  one  of 
Anne's  earlier  suitors  are  interesting  in  them- 
selves, whether  essential  or  not.  Let  me  add  that 
before  Mr.  Moore's  article  appeared  I  had  come 
to  consider  less  valuable  the  suggestion  of  Pro- 
fessor Koch,4  quoted  in  my  former  article,  that 
"people  most  likely  had  not  a  very  clear  notion 
as  to  affairs  in  Germany."  Something  like  inter- 
national exchange  of  news,  to  an  extent  we  are 
likely  to  underestimate,  must  have  been  common 
even  in  the  fourteenth  century. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  also,  Mr.  Moore's  fur- 
ther interpretation  of  the  last  lines  in  the  Parle- 
ment  of  Foules.  Yet  is  he  quite  right  in  assuming 
that  his  interpretation  is  wholly  new  ?  In  dis- 
cussing the  Legend  of  Good  Women,  Mr.  R,  K. 
Root 8  gives  essentially  the  same  suggestion,  re- 
ferring the  desired  favor  to  the  relief  from  official 
duties  in  February,  1385.  Even  before  that, 
Koch  had  interpreted  the  last  lines  as  indicating 
' '  that  Chaucer  was  searching  for  a  new  subject  to 
work  upon,"  though  he  does  not  note  Chaucer's 
purpose  in  the  expression  "  for  to  fare  The  bet." 

I  cannot  let  this  note  go  to  print  without  ex- 
pressing my  regret  that  the  study  of  the  suitors  of 
Anne  did  not  develop  something  more  definite 
regarding  the  date  of  the  Parlement.  The  astro- 
nomical reference  in  line  117,  as  interpreted  by 
Professor  Koch,"  must  refer  that  portion  to  the 
year  1380  or  1382.  It  seems  impossible  that  the 
poem  could  have  been  written  in  the  latter  year 
without  some  more  definite  reference  to  the  mar- 
riage, or  at  least  the  accomplished  betrothal  of 
Richard  and  Anne.  Yet  the  year  1380  is  too 
early  for  at  least  the  latter  part  of  the  poem,  since 
the  year's  delay,  symbolized  in  the  request  of 

*  Essays  on  Chaucer,  407-8. 

5  The  Poetry  of  Chaucer,  p.  140  ;  cf.  also  p.  64. 

8  Chronology  of  Chaucer's  Works  (Chaucer  Soc.),  p.  37  f. 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


Ill 


Aiine  for  "respit"   "until  this  yeer  be  doon" 
could  not  have  been  foreseen. 

One  middle  ground  between  these  two  assump- 
tions has  perhaps  occurred  to  others,  although  I 
believe  not  before  suggested.  Perhaps  Chaucer 
•wrote  the  introduction,  or  proem,  at  the  earlier 
date,  with  or  without  reference  to  the  marriage 
of  Richard  and  Anne,  though  the  marriage  with  a 
Bohemian  princess  had  been  proposed  as  early  as 
June,  1380.  Indeed  the  translation  of  the  Dream 
ofScipio  may  once  have  been  independent  of  any 
relation  to  the  later  subject  of  the  king's  court- 
ship. It  has  little  connection  with  the  later  story 
of  the  "formel  egle  "  and  her  suitors,7  except  to 
introduce  the  guide  "African  "  who,  although  he 
grasps  the  poet's  hand  in  lines  169-70,  is  never 
again  mentioned.  Does  the  poet  forget  his  bene- 
factor, or  are  we  to  assume  that  he  here  intends  a 
subtle  characteristic  of  the  psychology  of  dreams  ? 

Yet  whether  the  Dream  of  Scipio  was  written  as 
an  introduction  to  the  later  story  or  not,  if  the 
single  stanza  invoking  Citherea  is  accounted  for 
as  belonging  to  the  summer  of  1380,  the  rest  of 
the  poem  may  be  assigned  with  some  confidence 
to  138 1.8  In  the  latter  case  it  would  have  pre- 
ceded, instead  of  followed,  the  Palamon  and  Ar- 
cite,  or  the  Knight's  Tale  as  we  know  it."  This 

7  We  might  except,  perhaps,  the  first  two  stanzas,  which, 
however,  are  general,  rather  than  specific,  on  the  subject 
of  love,  and  not  unlike  many  other  lines  of  the  poet.     So 
the  invocation  to  Venus  (11.  113-19)  is  only  loosely  con- 
nected with  the  general  story,  and  even  breaks  the  natural 
continuity  of  lines  112  and  120.    Yet  I  cannot  go  so  far  as 
Mr.  Root  in  calling  the  Dream  ofScipio  "an  unfortunate 
bit  of  introductory  machinery"  (The  Poetry  of  Chaucer, 
p.  65). 

8  It  must  be  remembered  also  that,  according  to  the 
terms  of  the  betrothal  made  in  May,  1381,  Anne  was  ex- 
pected in  England  "about  the  feast  of  St.  Michael,"  or 
September  29.     The  poet  might  therefore  have  been  com- 
pleting his  poem  not  later  than  the  summer  of  1381.     Be- 
sides, as  the  formal  betrothal  is  mentioned  in  the  poem  no 
more  than  the  marriage,  the  year's  delay  may  have  ap- 
plied to  the  time  between  the  opening  of  negotiations  in 
June,  1380,  and  the  actual  betrothal  in  May,  1381.     The 
poem  may  have  been  completed  any  time  after  the  latter 
event. 

9  Professor  Lowes  suggests  this  order  in  ' '  The  Prologue 
to  the  Legend  of  Good  Women,"  etc.,  Publications  of  the 
Mod.  Lang.  Ass'n.,  xx,  861,  footnote.     With  more  con- 
fidence, he  also  places  the  Parlement  before  the  Palamon 
in  his  article  on  ''The  Date  of  Chaucer's  Troilus  and 
Criseyde,"  Ibid.,  xxni,  290.     Professor  Tatlock  also  pre- 


"Vfould  fully  account  for  the  omission  of  reference 
to  the  marriage,  and  show  why  the  poem  con- 
sidered the  courtship  only.  Perhaps  it  was  first 
publicly  presented  in  welcoming  the  new  queen.10 
It  may  be,  too,  that  the  problem  of  the  date  of 
the  Parlement  will  be  finally  worked  out  in  the 
relations  of  its  ampler  description  of  the  garden 
of  love,"  and  the  more  concise  description  of  the 
temple  of  Venus  in  the  Knight's  Tale,"  both  based 
in  the  main  on  Boccaccio's  Teseide.  While  no 
proof  has  yet  been  brought  forward  that  the  longer 
description  was  written  first,  it  seems  to  me  that  is 
more  natural  than  the  reverse  order."  If  that  be 
so,  and  the  Parlement  preceded  the  Palamon,  the 
latter  would  be  the  subject  which  Chaucer  alludes 
to,  by  anticipation,  at  the  close  of  the  former 
poem.  Led  to  use  the  Teseide,  as  he  had  in  the 
Parlement,  and  continuing  to  read  it  more  thor- 
oughly, the  poet  saw  how  he  could  mold  a  larger 
portion  of  it  into  the  Palamon  and  Arcite,  and  this 
became  his  next  venture.  In  any  case,  I  cannot 
but  think  that  1381  is  a  much  better  date  for  the 
former  poem  than  1382. 

OLIVER  FAERAR  EMERSON. 

Western  Reserve  University. 

fers  1380  to  1382  for  the  Parlement  in  Development  and 
Chronology  of  Chaucer9  s  Works,  p.  43. 

10  As  a  side  light  on  the  question  of  date,  it  is  difficult 
to  explain  the  description  of  the   "parliament"    itself 
(11.  519-619),  without  feeling  that  it  is  a  satire  upon  this 
form  of  government.     If  so,  it  could  scarcely  have  had  a 
fitter  subject  than  the  parliament  of  Northampton,  which 
met  in  November,  1380.     The  fiasco  which  this  parlia- 
ment made  in  its  poll-tax  proposals,  and  the  consequent 
troubles  of  the  year  1381,  may  easily  have  led  many  Eng- 
lishmen to  feel  that  representative  government  lacked 
many  of  the  elements  of  success.     Even  the    "Good" 
parliament  of  1376  could  scarcely  have  borne  that  name 
among  courtiers,  while  most  of  those  which  followed  for 
several  years  were  anti-Lancastrian,  and  this  would  have 
probably  meant  that  they  had   little  of  Chaucer's  sym- 
pathy.    Perhaps  on   this  account  he  now  directed  his 
satire  against  the  Commons.     Later  he  was  bold  enough 
to  speak  out  with  even  greater  severity  on  political  sub- 
jects in  lines  939-952  (E.  995-1008)  of  the  Griselda  story, 
and  in  Lack  of  Steadfastness. 

11  LI.  183  to  294. 

11  LI.  1060  to  1108  ;  A.  1918  to  1966. 

•SI  note  that  Professor  Lowes,  in  his  article  on  ''The 
Prologue  to  the  Legend  of  Good  Women"  and  the  note 
cited  above,  thinks  that  on  the  score  of  precedence  "hon- 
ors are  easy." 


112 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


TRACES  OF  GLEIM'S  GRENADIER- 
LIEDER  IN   1809 

The  Preussische  Kriegslieder  in  den  Feldzugen 
1756  und  1757  von  einem  Grenadier,  were  written 
before  Herder  invented  the  term  Volkslied  and 
before  he  and  Goethe  had  crystalized  the  meaning 
of  it.  They  contained  little  of  that  "  Volkstum- 
lichkeit"  with  which  their  none  too  eminent 
author  wished  to  color  them  ;  but  yet  possessed 
qualities  that  made  them  popular  in  certain  cir- 
cles, for  a  long  time. 

The  songs  were  intended,  in  spite  of  their  un- 
pretentious language,  or  I  might  almost  say — by 
reason  of  it,  to  appeal  to  the  ears  of  a  cultivated 
circle  of  readers,  learning  just  then  to  appreciate 
the  beauty  of  some  of  the  humbler  poetry.  That 
they  reached  such  readers  is  certain,  but  evidences 
of  their  popularity  among  the  "cultivated"  are 
few.  Nor  is  it  probable  that  they  were  popular 
with  people  possessed  of  little  culture,  for  we  do 
not  find  in  their  songs — the  so-called  Volkslieder 
— any  borrowing  from  the  Grenadier-Lieder. 

It  seems  to  have  been  rather  among  the  middle 
classes  that  these  songs  attained  their  greatest 
popularity  and  most  inspired  imitation.  Even 
before  the  end  of  the  Seven  Years  War  which 
they  celebrate,  and  while  their  hero,  Frederick, 
was  still  in  the  field,  mediocre  poets  brought  out 
anonymous  imitations  of  the  Grenadier-Lieder, 
written  in  the  same  meter  (that  of  ih&Chevy  Chase') 
and  the  same  general  tone.  This  adaptation, 
which  became  in  some  instances  *  plagiarism  pure 
and  simple,  gave  rise  to  a  rather  distinct  type  of 
over-patriotic  war-song  written  in  what  was  called 
"die  Gleim'sche  Manier." 

Because  I  suspected  Gleim's  war-songs  con- 
tinued to  exert  an  influence  on  nineteenth-century 
poetry  of  a  like  kind,  I  have  examined  the  war- 
poems  from  the  year  1809,  edited  by  Robert  F. 
Arnold  and  Karl  Wagner,2  a  collection  of  odes 
and  songs  of  all  sorts,  from  the  most  exalted  to 
the  humblest,  full  of  sympathy  with  Austria  in 
her  war  against  Napoleon, — songs  written  fifty  - 

1  Cf.  e.  g.,  Ditfurth,  Historische  Volkslieder  des  sieben- 
jdhrigen  Krieges,  Berlin,  1871,  p.  67. 

*  Achtzehnhundertneun.  Die  politische  Kriegslyrik  des 
Kriegsjahres,  being  Vol.  11  of  the  Schriften  des  Literari- 
schen  Vereins  in  Wien,  Vienna,  1909. 


one  years  after  the  first  edition  of  Gleim's  Prus- 
sian songs  against  Austria  appeared. 

I  find  that  nine  of  the  hundred  and  forty-seven 
songs  are  built  up  on  the  Chevy  Chase  meter  (that 
of  the  Grenadier-Lieder) ;  and  the  fact  is  note- 
worthy, tho  not  strange,  that  it  is  in  just  these 
songs  we  find  all  the  direct  borrowings  from  the 
Grenadier's  vocabulary. 

The  following  passages  taken  from  the  Kriegs- 
lieder and  from  Achtzehnhundertneun  represent 
the  result  of  my  search  for  direct  adaptation  of 

Gleim's  phrases  : 

1809,  No.  xxxix,  Str.  1 

Gl.  IX,  1.  Iff.3  (anonymous). 

Erschalle,  hohes  Siegeslied  Erschalle    froher    Kriegsge- 

Erschalle  well  umher  !  sang, 

Erschalle  weit  umher, 

Gl.  i,  1. 1.  1809,  No.  xxxix,  Str.  2. 

Krieg  ist   mein   Lied!    well  Krieg  will  der  Feind,  so  sei 

alle  Welt  denn  Krieg  ! 

Krieg  will,  so  sei  es  Krieg/  Wohlan,  zum  Kampf — zur 

Schlacht ! 

1809,  No.  XL  (anonymous) 

Gl.  I,  1.1 33.  Str.  6. 

Undstreit',  ein  tapfrer  Oren-  Und  fdllt    im    Kampf  der 

adier,  brave  Mann 

Von  Friedrichs  Muth  er-  In  diesem  edlen  Streit  ; 

fiillt !  So  sank  er  auf  der  Sieges- 
Was  acht  ich  es,  wenn  iiber  balm, 

mir  Wo     Oestreicb     Lorbeern 

Kanonendonner  brullt  ?  streut ! 

Ein   Held  fall    ich;    noch  Als  Held  fiel  er, — noch  ster- 

sterbend  droht  bend  droht 

Mein  Siibel  in  der  Hand  I  Das  Schwert  in  seiner  Hand  ; 

Unsterblichmacht  der  Helden  Unsterblich  macht  derHelden 

Tod,  Tod, 

Der  Tod  furs  Vaterland  !  Der  Tod  furs  Vaterland. 

Also  the  following  passage  seems  to  have  been 
influenced,  tho  less  directly,  by  the  above  lines 

of  Gleim's. 

1809,  No.  Lin  (anony- 
mous), Str.  ii. 
Und  Briidern  die  als  Helden 

fallen 

Fihjs  Vaterland  den  Tod, 
Lohnt  iiber  Sternen,  wo  sie 

wallen, 

Mit  tausend  Freuden  Gott. 
Drum  frisch  zum  Kampf 
mil  froheu  Herzen ! 

5  At  the  right  are  the  references  to  Sauer's  edition  of  the 
Kriegslieder, — Vol.  4  of  Deutsche  Lit.denkm.  des  18.  Jhdts. 
Stuttg. ,  1882.  At  the  left  are  passages  from  Achtzehnhun- 
dertneun. 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


113 


Gl.  iv,  1.  3. 

TFas  kannst  du  f    Fliehen 

kannst  du  nur  ; 
Und  siegen  konnen  wir. 


Uns  schiitzt  der  Allmacht 

Hand! 
Der  Heldentod  macht  keine 

Schmcrzen, 

Er  ist  fur's  Vaterland. 
1809    No.  LV.    Str.  5. 
( Wenzel  Neumann. ) 
Was  kann  erf  Fliehen  kann 

er  nur 
Und  rauben  Gut  und  Haab, 


The  following  passages  from  the  same  poem  by 
Neumann  show  the  same  leaning — tho  less  con- 
cretely than  in  the  foregoing — on  Gl.  in  and  IV, 
(Schlachtgesang  bey  Eroffnung  des  Feldzuges  1757 
and  Sehlachtgesang  vor  der  Schlacht  bey  Prag~). 


Gl.  in,  1.  1. 

Auf  Briider,  Friedrich, 

unser  Held, 

Der  Feind  von  fauler  Frist, 
Ruft  uns  nun  wieder  in  das 

Feld, 
Wo  Ruhm  zu  hohlen  1st. 

Gl.  m,  1.  21. 
Und  bot  uns  in  der  achten 

Schlacht 

Franzoss  mid  Russe  Trutz, 
So  lachten  wir  doch  ihrer 

Macht, 
Denn  Gott  ist  unser  Schulz. 


1809  No.  LV.   Sir.  1. 

(Neumann.) 
Hinaus  I    Wen  Muth  belebt, 

hinaus ! 

Es  rufet  Karl  der  Held  ! 
Nur  Hasen  lasse  man  zu 

Haus, 
Wir  aber  aiehen  ins  Feld. 

(Ditto)  Str.  7. 
Der  Name  :  Franz  sei  unser 

Schutz, 
Den  raubt  uns  nicht  der 

Tod; 
So  bieten  wir  den  Feinden 

Trutz; 
Denn  wir  vertrauen  auf  Gott ! 


These  are  the  closest  analogies,  and  further 
examples  would  only  give  added  proof  of  the 
evident  fact  that  ' '  Vater ' '  Gleim  struck,  in  these 
Grenadier '-Lieder,  a  tone  which  resounded  in  Ger- 
man war-poetry  for  at  least  half  a  century. 


GEORGE  PULLEN  JACKSON. 


Oberlin  College. 


THE   GLOVE  AND    THE  LIONS  IN 
KENTUCKY  FOLK-SONG 

Apropos  of  such  familiar  poems  as  Browning's 
The  Glove,  Schiller's  Der  Ilandschuh,  and  Leigh 
Hunt's  The  Glove  and  the  Lions,  is  the  ballad 
given  below.  It  was  sung  and  then  recited  to  me 
a  few  days  since  by  a  citizen  of  Pikeville,  in  the 
Cumberland  mountains  of  Kentucky,  a  district 
populated  to  a  considerable  degree  by  those 


migrating  thither  from  North  Carolina  through 
the  Cumberland  Gap  about  a  century  ago. 

I  have  within  the  last  two  years  set  down  on 
paper  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  of  these 
"ballets,"  as  they  are  called  by  the  Eastern 
Kentucky  Highlanders  who  sing  them.  About 
forty  of  the  collection  seem  to  have  been  composed 
on  British  soil,  as  evidenced  by  their  identity  or 
close  similarity  to  those  in  Professor  Child's  col- 
lection, or  else  by  their  inclusion  of  local  English 
or  Scottish  place-names  ;  for  example,  Edinboro, 
Nottingham,  Sheffield,  London,  Newgate,  St.  Pan- 
eras,  Kathrine  Street,  etc.  Others  contain  allu- 
sions to  early  colonial  days — gold-seeking  on  the 
Spanish  Main,  the  loves  of  white  settlers  for 
Indian  maidens  ;  others  more  modern  deal  with 
the  Civil  War,  and  later  feuds,  murders,  disas- 
ters, or  migrations.  Common  among  them  are 
ballads  of  love,  'complaints,'  and  stories  of  young 
lovers  disappointed  or  triumphant  over  obstacles. 
A  few  are  of  the  bestiary  type  ;  some  are  humor- 
ous, though  the  prevailing  tone,  like  the  music  to 
which  they  are  sung,  is  in  the  minor  key. 

With  the  exception  of  certain  erotic  songs  in 
the  manner,  phraseology,  and  flavor  of  Burns — a 
fact  easily  understood — only  the  one  here  given 
has,  to  my  knowledge,  any  immediate  relation  to 
a  recognized  literary  theme.1  And  even  this,  one 
must  feel,  is  not  so  closely  connected  with  the 
finished  poems  of  Browning,  Schiller,  or  Leigh 
Hunt  cited  above,  as  with  the  folk-tale  common 
to  them  all,  and  underlying,  perhaps,  even  the 
account  of  Poullain  de  St,  Croix  in  his  Essais 
Historiques  sur  Paris,  generally  regarded  as  the 
source  of  the  various  literary  versions.  As  such 
one  may  read  it,  not  overlooking  the  naivete  and 
ease  with  which  Paris  becomes  Carolina  and  cour- 
tier becomes  sailor.  To  make  this  tendency  to- 
ward localization  more  complete,  I  have  even 
heard  "lion's  deri "  of  stanza  five  sung  as 
"wildcat  hole." 

THE  FAN. 

Down  in  Carolina  lived  a  lady, 

And  she  was  beautiful  and  gay  ; 
She  was  determed  (sic)  to  live  a  lady, 

And  no  young  man  should  her  betray, 

1  Since  this  was  written,  about  six  months  ago,  my 
collection  has  grown  to  about  three  hundred,  with  the 
result  that  other  resemblances  have  been  found. 


114 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


Unless  he  was  a  man  of  honor, 

A  man  of  honor  and  of  high  degree  ; 

At  length  there  cam«  two  lovely  sailors 
They  came  this  lady  for  to  see. 

One  he  was  a  bold  lieutenant, 

A  man  of  honor  and  of  high  degree  ; 

The  other  was  a  brave  sea-captain, 

Belonging  to  a  ship  called  Karnel  Call. 

Then  up  spoke  this  fair  young  lady, 
Saying,  "I  can  be  but  one  man's  bride " ; 

Saying,  "  You  come  here  tomorrow  morning, 
And  this  here  question  we'll  decide." 

Then  she  called  for  coach  and  horses 

To  be  ready  at  her  command  ; 
They  rode  away,  they  rode  so  lovely, 

They  rode  till  they  came  to  the  lion's  den. 

There  they  stopped  and  there  they  halted, 

While  these  young  men  stood  ghastly  around  ; 

She  fell  senseless,  she  fell  senseless, 
She  fell  senseless  to  the  ground. 

To  herself  she  did  recover, 

She  threw  her  fan  in  the  lion's  den, 

Saying,  "Which  of  you  to  gain  a  lady 
Will  fetch  to  me  my  fan  again?" 

Then  up  spoke  this  bold  lieutenant, 

Saying,  "  Madam,  of  this  I  do  not  approve  ; 

Madam,  I'm  a  man  of  honor  ; 
I  will  not  lose  my  life  for  love." 

Then  up  spoke  this  brave  sea-captain, 

Who  was  there  a-standing  nigh, 
Saying,  "Madam,  I'm  a  man  of  honor  ; 

I  will  receive  your  fan  or  die." 

Then  down  in  the  cave  he  boldly  entered, 
While  these  lions  looked  fierce  and  wild  ; 

He  ripped,  he  raved  around  amongst  them 
And  returned  safe  with  her  fan. 

When  she  saw  her  love  a-coming, 

Unto  him  no  harm  was  done, 
She  threw  herself  all  in  his  arms,  saying, 

"  Here  is  the  prize  that  you  have  won." 

Then  up  spoke  this  bold  lieutenant, 

Just  like  some  man,  that  was  troubled  in  mind, 
Saying,  "  In  these  woods,  I'll  always  wander 

And  not  a  girl  I'll  ever  find." 


HUBERT  G.  SHEARIN. 


Transylvania  University. 


HA  USER,  OTTO,  Weltgeschichte  der  Literatur. 
Leipzig  und  Wien.  Bibliographisches  Institut. 
1910.  2  Volumes. 

As  the  Introduction  shows,  an  attempt  is  here 
made  to  present  the  world's  literatures  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Gobineau-Woltmann  prin- 
ciple of  ' '  race  ' '  which,  though  not  yet  very  well 
known  in  this  country,  during  the  last  decade 
has  attracted  a  vast  amount  of  attention  in  Ger- 
many. According  to  this  theory  the  civilization 
of  any  people  is  the  expression  of  inherent  race 
characteristics  ("dasz  der  Mensch  als  solcher 
seine  Geschichte  macht"),  and  influences  from 
without  play  a  secondary  part,  and  then  generally 
in  non-essentials.  As  the  real  bearers  and  cre- 
ators of  civilizations  in  Western  life  and  pro- 
ducers of  geniuses,  this  theory  names  the  peoples 
from  the  north  of  Europe,  the  blond  peoples 
with  but  slight  pigmentation  ;  only  as  this  blond 
element  predominated  in  a  race,  did  that  race 
stand  high  in  intellectual  and  artistic  achieve- 
ment. We  cannot  but  feel  that  this  theory — what- 
ever its  scientific  importance  may  be — frequently 
carries  H.  too  far  afield.  Any  history  of  litera- 
ture should  be  primarily  a  contribution  to  our 
aesthetic  and  cultural  appreciation  of  letters,  and 
not  to  our  anthropological  knowledge  and  insight. 
In  a  book  on  anthropology,  H.  might  make  some 
telling  points  by  references  to  illustrative  literary 
phenomena :  in  a  book  on  literature,  the  anthropo- 
logical discussions  appear  essentially  inorganic. 
For  instance,  one  finds  little  satisfaction  in  H.'s 
ethnological  explanation  of  the  cause  of  the  great 
wave  of  enlightenment  in  France,  with  Voltaire 
at  its  head,  as  a  Germanic,  not  a  Gallic  protest  (i, 
420),  while  no  attempt  is  made  to  sketch  the 
political  and  social  aspects  of  the  Counter-Refor- 
mation without  which  Voltaire  is  inconceivable. 
Unsatisfactory  also  and  unsafe  appears  the  attempt 
at  proving  merely  on  the  basis  of  names  the  Ger- 
manic descent  of  conspicuous  individuals,  like 
Macchiavelli  (i,  272).  Again  from  the  name 
only  H.  adduces  the  theory  that  Ignatius  da 
Loyola  was  by  origin  Germanic  (i,  309).  This  is 
especially  perplexing,  as  Houston  Stewart  Cham- 
berlain in  his  Grundlagen  des  neunzehnten  Jahr- 
hunderts,  which  is  built  upon  the  same  ethnological 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


115 


principle  as  H.'s  book,  makes  a  special  point  of 
proving  Loyola  the  very  embodiment  of  every- 
thing that  is  anti-Germanic  in  the  Roman  church 
(i,618,  ofthe  "Volksausgabe,"  Miinchen,  1907). 
We  are  compelled,  then,  to  dismiss  the  anthro- 
pological increment  in  the  work  before  us  aa  essen- 
tially irrelevant. 

What  a  "World's  History  of  Literature" 
should  offer  is  the  application  of  the  comparative 
method  in  a  larger  and  more  suggestive  fashion 
than  can  possibly  be  done  in  the  treatment  of  the 
literary  output  of  any  single  nation.  Not  only 
should  the  interpenetration  of  literary  forces  be 
revealed,  but  by  means  of  contrasts  and  parallel- 
isms, which  continually  suggest  themselves,  a 
riper  understanding  of  literature  as  the  expression 
of  evar-recurring  forces  should  be  attained.  To 
be  sure,  some  such  helpful  cross-references 
occur :  as  r,  117  the  comparison  between  the 
religion  of  Zoroaster  and  Christianity  ;  or  again, 
I,  163  the  reference  to  Paul  etVirginie  in  connec- 
tion with  Daphnis  and  Chloc  ;  or  I,  409  the  excel- 
lent contrast  between  Racine's  Pkedre  and  Euri- 
pides' Hippolytus ;  or  ir,  143  the  treatment  of  the 
story  of  Tristan  and  Isolde  as  found  in  Gottfried, 
Wagner,  and  Swinburne.  Perhaps  the  best  in- 
stance of  such  illuminating  treatment  is  found  in 
the  paragraph  on  Stendhal  (i,  448),  where  H. 
aptly  points  out  that  the  so-called  realistic  style 
of  the  later  nineteenth  century  had  its  powerful 
forerunner  in  Stendhal  who  in  his  Renaissance 
stories — the  Cenci,  etc., — had  simply  adopted  the 
style  of  the  Italian  novelists  of  the  quattro-  and 
cinquecento.  But  these  cross-references,  though 
good,  appear  far  too  sporadically,  and  do  not  suf- 
ficiently determine  the  character  of  the  work  as 
a  whole. 

A  few  obvious  gaps  may  serve  as  illustration. 
Thus,  although  the  characterization  of  the  Pant- 
schatantra  (i,  98)  is  excellent  in  itself,  it  loses 
value  because  the  author  fails  to  compare  and 
contrast  it  with  the  great  number  of  other  collec- 
tions of  stories  throughout  the  world's  literature, 
such  as  the  Dccamerone  and  all  its  successors. 
More  serious  still,  in  the  discussion  of  the  Greek 
drama,  (i,  145  ff.)  is  the  neglect  on  H.'s  part  to 
compare  and  contrast  the  conception  of  guilt  and  of 
fate  among  the  Greeks  with  that  of  Shakespeare, 
and  again  with  that  of  Hebbel  and  Ibsen.  H. 


might  have  shown  the  striking  similarity — ill 
spite  of  fundamental  differences — between  the 
conception  of  fate  in  the  dramas  of  Aeschylus  and 
Sophocles  and  in  such  modern  dramas  as  Hebbel' s 
Maria  Magdalena  and  Ibsen's  Ghosts,  Instead 
of  contenting  himself  with  a  mere  passing  refer- 
ence to  the  technical  similarity  between  Ibsen's 
analytical  plays  and  the  drama  of  the  Greeks 
(n,  293),  H.  might  thus  have  given  us  in  a  nut- 
shell the  points  in  common  and  the  points  of 
difference  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern 
psyche,  as  they  reveal  themselves  in  tragedy.  I, 
164,  the  Pseudo- Kallisthenes  is  in  no  way  asso- 
ciated with  Alexander-epics  of  the  Middle  Age.s. 
In  a  German  book  we  might  expect  in  connection 
with  Basile  (i,  281)  some  reference  to  Clemens 
Brentano,  in  connection  with  Gozzi  some  refer- 
ence to  Richard  Wagner  (Die  Feeti),  and  in  con- 
nection with  Cervantes'  Novelas  exemplar es  (i, 
326)  a  reference  to  Ludwig  Tieck,  to  whom  these 
"leuchtende  Novellen  "  were  a  veritable  source 
of  inspiration.  Again,  in  a  German  book  we 
might  look  in  the  discussion  of  Don  Quixote  for 
some  reference  to  his  enormous  influence  upon  the 
German  Romantic  School,  flowing  from  a  profound 
affinity  between  its  author  and  the  quixotic  leaders 
of  that  remarkable  movement.  I  cannot  feel  that 
H.'s  discussions  of  Voltaire's  Essai  sur  les  Moeurs 
et  V Esprit  (i,  428)  is  at  all  adequate.  The 
contrast  with  Bossuet's  Discours  remains  vague, 
and  nothing  is  done  to  illuminate  the  difference 
in  principle  between  Voltaire's  conception  of  his- 
tory and  that  of  Vico,  Herder,  the  Romanticists, 
and  the  moderns.  H.'s  lack  of  comparative 
method  is  most  conspicuous  in  his  treatment  of 
Diderot  (i,  429).  The  importance  of  Diderot  aa 
the  first  great  critic  to  base  judgments  of  painting 
on  the  emotions  rather  than  exclusively  upon  the 
intellect,  and  his  value  in  thia  connection  for 
Heinse,  Fr.  Schlegel,  and  indirectly  for  Rio  in 
France  and  Ruskin  in  England,  is  altogether  over- 
looked. Nor  is  Diderot's  Neveu  de  Rameau  suf- 
ficiently appreciated  as  the  great  forerunner  of 
Balzac's  studies  of  character,  nor  "La  Religieuse" 
as  the  forerunner  of  Zola' s  naturalistic  novels.  Nor 
do  we  find  a  word  as  to  the  position  in  the  history 
of  narration  of  Diderot's  Madame  de  la  Pomme- 
raye's  Revenge  in  Jaques  le  Fataliste,  as  the  first 
example  of  the  specifically  psychological  short- 


116 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xx vi,  No.   4. 


•tory.  Here,  for  the  first  time,  the  conception  of 
the  Italian  "  novella  "  as  the  recital  of  an  extra- 
ordinary event  was  combined  with  profound  psy- 
chological analysis,  and  the  entire  story  is  made 
to  pivot  about  one  occurrence  which  changes  the 
lives  of  all  concerned.  It  would  have  been  interest- 
ing to  pursue  this  conception  throughout  the  nine- 
teenth century  in  Germany  (notably  in  Kleist, 
Heyse,  etc.),  in  France  (notably  Me'rime'e,  Mau- 
passant, etc.),  in  England  (notably  Foe,  Haw- 
thorne, Kipling),  in  Russia  (Turgenjew,  etc.), 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  short-story  has  for  the 
last  hundred  years  played  such  an  important  part. 
The  discussion  of  Milton  (n,  80  ff. ),  in  a  work  of 
this  nature,  should  certainly  contain  an  appre- 
ciation of  the  poet's  enormous  influence  on  the 
continental  literatures  of  the  eighteenth  and  nine- 
teenth centuries  down  through  Chateaubriand. 
Nor  should  a  "  Weltgeschichte  der  Literatur" 
stop  here,  but  should  have  something  to  say  on 
the  peculiar  psychological  and  sociological  rea- 
sons for  such  sovereign  sway.  Instances  of 
this  nature  might  be  greatly  multiplied,  not  only 
from  those  literatures  already  adduced,  but  also 
from  the  Norwegian,  the  Russian,  etc. 

Besides  the  omission  of  illuminating  cross-refer- 
ences and  comparisons,  H.  frequently  fails  to 
make  an  important  phenomenon  appear  in  its 
proper  perspective.  For  instance,  in  the  discus- 
sion of  Theocritus  and  the  pastoral  poetry  of 
the  ancients  (i,  159),  it  would  be  helpful  to  find 
references  to  the  pastoral  poetry  of  the  Renais- 
sance and  of  the  eighteenth  century  (Geszner), 
and  a  hint  that  similar  conditions  here  produced 
similar  phenomena.  The  mere  reference  back  to 
Theocritus  and  Virgil  in  the  paragraph  on  Italian 
pastoral  poetry  (i,  268),  and  to  Sanazaro  under 
the  treatment  of  Sidney  (n,  18)  is  in  no  sense 
exhaustive,  while  the  paragraph  on  Geszner  con- 
tains no  hint  that  he  is  the  exponent  of 
views  of  life  and  art  akin  to  those  of  Sanazaro 
and  his  school.  In  the  discussion  of  the  Deca- 
merone  (i,  248)  nothing  is  done  to  make  the 
reader  appreciate  how  this  work  bulks  in  the 
history  of  literature  as  the  great  fountain-head  of 
similar  "frame-stories"  from  Chaucer  to  Tieck's 
Phantasus.  Passing  references,  such  as  that 
Sacchetti  and  Chaucer  used  Boccaccio  as  a 
source  (i,  250;  u,  10),  do  not  throw  Boccaccio's 


work  into  relief.  That  Tieck's  "Phantasm" 
should  nowhere  be  mentioned  in  this  German 
book  is  at  least  surprising.  The  same  lack  of 
perspective  is  apparent  in  H's  treatment  of  the 
love-letters  of  the  nun  Marianna  Alcoforado  (i, 
357)  which  he  introduces  merely  as  an  exponent 
of  seventeenth  century  sentiment  in  Portugal. 
Thus  their  real  significance  as  an  expression  of 
uncontrolled  passion  coming  one  hundred  years 
before  Rousseau  is  lost  sight  of. 

In  connection  with  the  discussion  of  Giuseppe 
Baretti  (i,  287  f. )  to  whose  importance  as  a 
hyphen  between  English  and  Italian  literatures 
H.  does  full  justice,  I  should  like  in  parenthesis 
to  call  attention  to  a  work  on  the  Italian  critic 
by  L.  Collison-Morley,  Giuseppe  Bareiti  and  his 
Friends,  London,  1909,  which  sheds  much  new 
light  on  the  life  and  activity  of  one  of.  the  most 
interesting  of  the  lesser  writers  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

The  task  of  sesthetic  interpretation,  so  impor- 
tant in  every  history  of  literature,  becomes  in  a 
work  of  the  compass  of  the  one  before  us  veritably 
gigantic.  H.,  who  is  peculiarly  fitted  for  his 
undertaking  by  his  wide  experience  as  a  trans- 
lator from  many  languages  (English,  Chinese, 
Japanese,  Italian,  Hebrew,  Danish,  etc.),  has 
accomplished  it  on  the  whole  with  remarkable 
adequacy.  Only  superhuman  versatility  could 
be  equally  just  to  national  temperaments  as  di- 
vergent as  the  English  and  the  Hindoo,  the 
ancient  Greek  and  the  Slav.  Here  individual 
bias  must  play  an  important  part.  H.  evidently 
has  great  natural  affinity  with  the  Romance  point 
of  view.  Hence  his  thorough  appreciation  of 
writers  like  Dante  (i,  238  ff. ),  D'Annunzio  (i, 
303 f.).  Stendhal  (i,  448),  etc.  English  liter- 
ature, too,  finds  in  him,  in  many  cases  at  least,  a 
most  sympathetic  spokesman,  as  appears  in  the 
discussion  of  Milton  (ir,  30 ff.),  Lafcadio  Hearn 
(n,  71  f. ),  Swinburne  (ir,  91  f. ),  etc.,  etc.  How- 
ever, the  paragraphs  on  Moliere  (i,  411  f.)  do  not 
seem  to  me  to  do  justice  to  this  subtle  and  original 
genius  ;  those  on  Balzac  (i,  448  f. )  give  no  sat- 
isfactory conception  of  the  importance  of  that 
mastermind  among  modern  novelists.  Nor  is  H. 
with  all  his  admiration  for  English  literature  ca- 
pable of  overcoming  the  almost  universal  prejudice 
ao-ainst  Wordsworth  which  obtains  on  the  conti- 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


117 


nent.  The  poetic  significance  of  Wordsworth  es- 
capes him  completely  (n,  54  f.).  A  poem  of  the 
importance  of  Tintern  Abbey  is  not  even  men- 
tioned. Nevertheless,  it  would  be  captious  not 
to  emphasize  H.'s  remarkable  ability  to  enter  into 
national  temperaments  differing  from  his  own. 

All  the  more  surprising  is  the  unsatisfactoriness 
of  his  treatment  of  German  literature.  His  dis- 
cussion of  the  aesthetic  value  of  the  Nibelungenlied 
(n,  145 f.)  is  altogether  weak.  The  treatment  of 
Goethe  (ir,  201  ff. )  would  make  the  sage  of  Wei- 
mar appear  as  a  prolific  writer  of  considerable 
talent,  and  nothing  more.  Heinrich  von  Ofter- 
dingen  (n,  209)  is  passed  over  with  the  phrase 
"der  zerflieszende  Roman"  without  one  further 
word  of  comment.  It  is  well-nigh  unpardonable 
in  a  German  treatise  to  make  no  attempt  at  un- 
derstanding this  extraordinary  work  as  the  great 
exponent  of  the  romantic  genius  and  one  of  the 
most  important  prophecies  of  the  art  of  Maeter- 
linck. Brentano  (n,  211)  H.  dismisses  sum- 
marily with  the  words  :  ' '  Lesbar  ist  keines  seiner 
Werke  mehr.  Es  fehlt  jede  Darstellungskraft, 
jede  ku'nstlerische  Zucht."  He  makes  no  effort 
at  doing  justice  to  the  narrative  art  displayed  in 
the  story  Vom  braven  Kasperl  und  dem  schonen 
Annerl,  and  does  not  even  mention  Die  mehreren 
Wehmuller  with  its  mad  charm.  Furthermore, 
I  cannot  feel  that  H.  is  fair  to  so  complex  and 
original  a  thinker  as  Herder  (n,  200  1).  As  far 
as  I  can  judge,  H.'s  treatment  of  Italian  liter- 
ature is  the  most  satisfactory,  that  of  German 
literature  the  least  so. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  value  to  the  public  in  a 
work  of  this  sort  would  reside  in  the  wealth  of 
material  presented.  To  find  within  two  covers  a 
history  of  literatures  recondite  or  little  known 
must,  of  course,  be  most  welcome.  Here  H.  ap- 
pears to  me  to  meet  every  reasonable  demand.  So, 
the  chapters  on  Byzantine  literature  (i,  164  ff. ) 
must  be  grateful  to  all  those  anxious  to  study  the 
medieval  currents  of  literary  life  from  a  larger 
international  point  of  view,  and  the  "Christliche 
Literaturkreis "  (i,  196  ff.)  is  valuable  for  a 
comprehension  of  many  later  literary  phenomena. 
But  H.  does  not  stop  there.  He  offers  chapters 
on  Rhaeto-Romanic  literature  (i,  304 f.),  on  Al- 
banese  (i,  307  ff.),  on  the  literatures  of  the 
various  dialects  of  India  and  Persia,  of  the  Mon- 


gols, the  several  Slavic  tribes,  the  Turks,  etc., 
etc.  To  suggest  additions  may  seem  cavil.  I  may 
say,  however,  that  I  missed  in  Italian  literature  a 
reference  to  D'Azeglio' s  "Irniei  Ricordi  "  and  its 
importance  as  a  document  of  the  genesis  of  the 
' '  risorgimento. "  More  serious  is  the  complete 
absence  of  any  systematic  treatment  of  Yiddish 
literature.  A  "  Weltgeschichte  "  should  certainly 
take  some  cognizance  of  such  a  rich  expression  of 
the  life  of  several  million  people,  especially  after 
Leo  Wiener's  treatise  :  The  History  of  Yiddish 
Literature  in  the  Nineteenth  Century.  New  York, 
Scribner,  1899.  Remarks  like  "Semen  Gregore- 
witsch  Frug  ....  der  auch  im  Jargon  schrieb  ' ' 
(i,  66)  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  sufficient. 

In  conclusion  we  may  say  that  this  book,  the 
value  of  which  is  enhanced  by  excellent  illustra- 
tions, will  in  spite  of  faults  (many  of  which  I 
appreciate  are  unavoidable  in  a  work  of  such  com- 
pass), be  found  a  useful  and  reliable  compendium 
of  literatures. 

CAMILLO  VON  KLENZE. 

Si-own  University. 


Stage  Decoration  in  France  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
by  DONALD  CLIVE  STUART.  New  York  :  Co- 
lumbia University  Press,  1910.  ix,  230  pp. 

This  study  of  the  medieval  stage  of  France 
shows  considerable  differences  of  treatment  from 
its  predecessors.  By  considering  drama  in  the 
Middle  Ages  as  a  unit,  the  evidence  of  both 
secular  and  religious  plays  has  been  combined. 
Where  the  iexts  themselves  do  not  furnish  any 
specific  directions,  their  individual  lines  have 
been  searched  for  hints  regarding  their  setting. 
These  innovations  are  important.  They  alone 
give  the  volume  unusual  worth.  And  besides, 
the  author  follows  a  direct  chronological  order  in 
his  exposition.  The  conditions  peculiar  to  the 
thirteenth  century,  for  instance,  are  distinguished 
from  the  situation  which  obtains  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth.  The  indoor  theater  of  the  pui  or 
fraternity — the  ancestor  of  the  Renaissance  stage 
— is  also  carefully  differentiated  from  the  open-air 
structures  placed  in  front  of  churches  or  built  hi 
public  squares. 


118 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


One  of  the  interesting  questions  which  runs 
through  several  chapters  concerns  the  position  of 
the  different  parts  of  the  scenery  relative  to  one 
another.  How  many  levels  were  presented  to  the 
spectators?  Were  Heaven  and  Hell  always  set 
above  and  below  Earth  ?  The  earliest  play  which 
can  be  cited  as  a  witness  is  Adam,  where  there 
were  two  levels,  one  for  Earth,  the  other  for  the 
Earthly  Paradise.  But  Hell  is  merely  indicated, 
by  doors  or  gates.  Plays  contemporaneous  with 
Adam,  as  the  fragment  of  the  Resurrection  and 
Bodel's  Jeu  de  St.  Nicolas,  and  those  which  came 
half-a-century  later,  Rutebeuf's  Miracle  de  Theo- 
phile  and  Adan  de  la  Hale's  comedies,  require 
but  one  level,  Earth.  Bodel,  to  be  sure,  divides 
the  scenery  on  that  level  into  four  sections,  cor- 
responding to  a  palace,  a  prison,  a  tavern  and  a 
hut.  Now  if  these  survivals  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury drama  are  representative,  the  conclusion  fol- 
lows that  the  stage  setting  of  the  time  was  simple, 
and  that  it  was  all  in  place  when  the  action  began. 

It  is  probable  that  the  fourteenth  century  saw  a 
considerable  development  of  the  open-air  play. 
The  pantomime  of  the  Passion  given  by  Philip  le 
Bel,  in  1313,  and  the  pageant  in  honor  of  Isabeau 
of  Bavaria,  in  1389,  would  indicate  growth  in 
that  direction.  But  the  texts  of  this  century, 
practically  limited  to  the  one  manuscript  of  the 
Miracles  de  Notre  Dame,  belong  to  the  indoor 
theater,  and  do  not  require  any  more  scenery  than 
Bodel' s  Jeu  de  St.  Nicolas,  their  elder  by  at  least 
three  generations.  From  a  study  of  the  lines  of 
the  Miracles- -for  their  manuscript  does  not  offer 
any  guidance  as  to  their  staging — Dr.  Stuart  con- 
cludes that  the  larger  number  were  performed  on 
one  level,  Earth.  In  a  few  Heaven  appears  on 
another  level,  while  Hell  seems  to  have  been 
rarely  set,  if  at  all.  The  scenery  contained  doors 
and  windows.  Localities  distant  from  the  place 
of  the  main  action  were  apparently  represented  by 
suggestion  only.  The  stage  used  by  the  average 
Miracle,  which  hardly  ever  exceeded  seven  scenes, 
would  not  be  larger  than  the  one  built,  near  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in  the  Hotel  of 
Burgundy,  and  if  the  few  settings  for  Heaven 
were  suppressed  it  would  correspond  to  that  well- 
known  one  in  kind.  Where  the  Miracles  ran  to 
eleven  or  twelve  scenes,  as  they  sometimes  did, 
either  a  wider  stage  was  needed,  or  the  scenery 
was  changed  during  the  performance. 


With  the  fifteenth  century,  stage  decoration 
reached  its  height  in  France.  The  large  open-air 
plays  of  that  day  varied  in  nature  and  extent  of 
scenery  with  the  ideas  of  their  constructors.  All, 
however,  must  have  agreed  in  giving  Hell  a 
greater  prominence,  and  it  was  towards  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century  that  Hell's  opening  as  a 
dragon's  mouth  was  probably  invented.  As  for 
levels,  some  plays  set  Heaven,  Earth  and  Hell 
on  the  same  plane,  and  in  this  order,  going  from 
East  to  West.  Others  demanded  different  levels, 
with  Earth  midway  between  Hell  and  Heaven. 
Sometimes  Hell  and  Heaven  were  subdivided 
even,  and  five  or  more  stories  were  used  for  the 
action  instead  of  three.  The  same  growth  in  com- 
plexity is  also  seen  in  the  stage  of  the  fifteenth 
century  Miracles,  which  set  Heaven  and  Hell 
much  more  frequently  than  their  predecessors  had 
done. 

But  it  is  the  stage  of  the  Fraternity  of  the  Pas- 
sion that  is  of  the  greatest  consequence  for  the 
future  history  of  the  French  theater.  Trinity 
Hospital  and  the  Hotel  of  Flanders  begot  the 
Hotel  of  Burgundy.  In  Trinity  Hospital,  all 
localities,  Heaven,  Earth  and  Hell,  were  quite 
certainly  on  the  same  level.  Indeed,  the  stage 
directions  for  the  plays  which  were  performed 
there  would  prove  that  Heaven  and  Hell  were 
more  often  understood  than  set.  The  stage  sloped 
towards  the  front,  making  the  scenery  in  the  rear 
slightly  higher.  There  were  not  many  scenes  in 
the  plays. 

The  moralites,  farces  and  sotties,  secular  plays 
performed  indoors,  did  not  require  a  setting  any 
more  extended  than  the  stage  of  the  Fraternity 
could  supply.  At  least  so  much  might  be  inferred 
from  the  few  allusions  scattered  through  their 
lines.  Still,  Heaven,  when  represented  in  them, 
occupied  a  different  level  from  Earth.  As  for 
Hell,  hardly  ever  shown,  its  position  remains  in- 
definite. In  by  far  the  larger  number  of  these 
plays  Earth  alone  was  used.  The  average  num- 
ber of  scenes  was  three. 

Take  Pathelin  as  an  example  of  this  kind.  It 
has  three  scenes  :  house,  shop  and  court.  The 
house  contained  a  bed  for  the  sick  Pathelin.  This 
bed  was  in  full  view  of  the  audience,  because  the 
front  wall  of  the  house  was  removed.  In  the  side 
walls  would  be  doors  and  windows.  Accordingly 


April,   1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


119 


Pathelin  spoke  from  his  bed  during  the  scene  of 
illness,  and  did  not  come  out  to  the  front  of  the 
stage,  to  an  indeterminate  place,  as  Rigal's  theory 
of  a  conventional  speaking-place  would  imply. 

From  all  of  which  it  would  follow  that  the 
Parisians,  at  least,  had  long  been  accustomed  to  a 
stage  of  one  level  and  having  only  a  few  parti- 
tions. To  this  stage  of  Trinity  Hospital  and  the 
Hotel  of  Flanders  Hardy  succeeded  in  the  Hotel 
of  Burgundy,  and  after  him  Corneille.  The  av- 
erage theater-goer  of  the  fifteenth  and  early  six- 
teenth centuries,  attending  indoor  plays  the  larger 
part  of  the  year,  would  look  on  the  great  outdoor 
mysteries  as  exceptions,  unusual  undertakings  re- 
served for  festivals  and  days  of  public  rejoicing. 
And  the  tradition  of  the  Franco-Roman  stage 
would  consequently  be  unbroken. 

Now,  Dr.  Stuart  would  have  this  tradition 
reach  back  into  Roman  times  and  find  its  begin- 
nings in  Rome  itself.  To  the  formulation  of  this 
theory  he  devotes  the  pages  of  his  first  chapter. 
And  the  colporters  of  the  Roman  drama  down 
through  the  centuries  to  the  invention  of  the  litur- 
gical convent  plays  would  be  the  actors  of  the 
Roman  school,  the  mimes.  Not  only  would  they 
have  kept  the  profane  theater  alive,  they  would 
have  also  suggested  to  the  monks  the  possibilities 
of  the  religious  drama  by  attempts  they  them- 
selves had  made  along  this  line.  The  hypothesis, 
as  may  be  seen,  is  an  attractive  one.  Unfortu- 
nately documents  seem  to  be  lacking  for  its  proof. 
Indeed,  some  allusions  may  be  even  cited  against 
its  soundness.  Dr.  Stuart  has  not  found  any  men- 
tion of  the  mimes'  activity  during  the  whole  cru- 
cial period  of  the  evolution  of  the  liturgical  drama, 
or  approximately  the  tenth  century.  But  at  the 
middle  of  this  period  stands  one  quite  explicit 
witness.  Bishop  Atto  (after  960)  of  Vercelli, 
in  northwest  Italy,  not  far  from  French  territory, 
says  in  one  of  his  sermons  on  worship,  that  true 
worshippers  ' '  non  laetantur  in  theatris,  ut  scenici ; 
non  in  epithalmiis  et  cantileuis,  ut  mimi  ;  non  in 
saltationibus  et  circo,  ut  histriones."  *  For  "ludus 
scenicus "  is  "  castitatis  raptor,"  and  was  in- 
vented by  Bacchus  and  Venus.  The  good  bishop 
surely  differentiates  actors  from  the  mimes,  or 
singers.  And  a  German  contemporary  of  his 

1  Migne,  Patrologia  Latina,  cxxxrv,  844. 


seems  to  confirm  this  idea  that  the  mimes  were 
the  singers  of  the  crowd,  when  he  speaks  of  them 
as  singing  songs  of  a  great  battle.1  The  same 
division  between  actors  and  singers,  but  without 
naming  either  class,  is  made  by  the  unknown  re- 
viser (1002  or  1003)  of  the  life  of  Matilda  of 
Germany  (f968).  After  her  husband's  death 
"neminem  voluit  carmina  secularia  cantantem, 
nee  quemquam  videre  ludum  exercentem,"  we  are 
told.8  So  that  the  tenth  century  had  its  plays 
equally  with  the  ninth  and  eleventh.  What  those 
plays  were  and  by  whom  they  were  acted  is  not  eo 
clear.4 

F.  M.  WARREN. 

Yale  University. 


English  Dramatic  Companies,  1558-1642.  JOHN 
TUCKER  MURRAY,  M.  A.  2  vols.  London  : 
Constable  and  Company,  1910. 

Students  of  the  Elizabethan  drama  have  been 
awaiting  for  some  years  the  results  of  Mr.  Mur- 
ray's examination  of  the  records  of  English  pro- 
vincial towns.  It  has  long  been  recognized  that 
from  these  town  records  we  might  expect  a  large 
addition  to  our  knowledge  of  the  Elizabethan  dra- 
matic companies,  and  also  that  this  additional 
knowledge  is  essential  to  any  comprehensive  and 
reliable  history  of  these  companies  and  likely  to 
throw  much  light  on  various  matters  connected 
with  the  drama.  The  results  of  Mr.  Murray's 

J  Widukind  of  Corvey  (-973-)  in  Pertz,  Scriptorts,  in, 
428. 

3  Pertz,  o.  c.,  iv,  294. 

4  Dr.  Stuart  (p.  31 )  dates  Sponsus  around  the  year  1000, 
and  is  therefore  obliged  to  set  the  development  of   the 
liturgical  drama  far  back  into  the  tenth  century,  with  ita 
origins  as  early  as  the  ninth  and  possibly  the  eighth.    But 
Sponsus  is  a  hundred  years  younger,  at  least,  and  there- 
fore, so  far  as  this  specimen  is  concerned,  the  liturgical 
drama  need  not  have  begun  until  after  the  breaking-up  of 
the  Carolingian  empire  and  after  the  invention  of  its  sup- 
posed embryos,  the  tropes  of  St.  Gall  and  St.  Martial's  of 
Limoges.     Nor  can  we  gainsay  the  evidence,   whether 
political,  social,  religious  or  intellectual  in  kind,  that  only 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  tenth  century  was  the  ground 
prepared  in  western  Europe  for  the  advent  of  a  new  litera- 
ture, for  a  new  idea  of  poetry  and  a  new  conception  of 
dramatic  art. 


120 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


thorough  and  extensive  researches  are  now  em- 
bodied in  two  handsome  volumes  which  are  sure  to 
receive  a  hearty  welcome  and  careful  study. 

These  additions  to  our  knowledge  of  the  drama 
are  extensive  and  valuable.  Heretofore  we  have 
known  but  little  of  the  companies  outside  of  Lon- 
don. Mr.  Murray  adds  not  only  compilations 
from  all  available  sources  of  information  but  a  very 
large  number  of  entries  chiefly  from  the  Mayor's 
Court  books,  the  account  books,  and  the  letter 
books  of  the  corporations  of  provincial  towns. 
All  this  material  has  been  carefully  analyzed,  and 
is  preserved  in  serviceable  and  convenient  form. 
While  it  must  be  confessed  that  these  researches 
have  discovered  nothing  of  startling  importance  or 
requiring  a  revolutionary  revision  of  dramatic  his- 
tory, they  constitute  the  most  important  addition 
since  Fleay  to  the  stage  history  of  the  Elizabethan 
drama,  and  correct  and  supplement  our  knowledge 
at  many  points.  The  volumes  fully  justify  this 
statement  in  their  preface. 

"  The  new  material  collected  from  the  provin- 
cial records  has  considerably  modified  the  history 
of  almost  every  known  dramatic  company  of  the 
Elizabethan  period,  has  brought  to  light  a  large 
number  of  new  companies  and  many  hitherto  un- 
known actors,  has  given  much  new  information 
about  the  methods  of  licensing  companies,  the  re- 
lations of  the  London  and  provincial  companies, 
the  plays  acted  in  the  provinces,  the  places  of  ac- 
ting, the  attitude  of  the  people  toward  the  players, 
their  earnings,  and  their  relations  to  their  patrons. 
Of  these  details  it  has  been  impossible  in  this  book 
to  treat  fully  those  referring  more  especially  to  the 
customs  of  the  companies.  This,  I  hope  to  do  in 
a  subsequent  work." 

In  addition  to  presenting  this  new  material,  the 
volumes  provide,  in  tables  conveniently  arranged 
for  reference,  lists  of  court  performances,  mortality 
tables  for  the  plague,  and  various  documents  con- 
cerning the  companies.  Moreover,  they  under- 
take the  rewriting  of  the  history  of  each  company, 
and  thus  traverse,  revise  and  supplement  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  matter  in  Fleay' s  History 
of  the  Stage.  They  do  not  deal  with  the  plays 
presented  or  the  authors  employed,  or,  in  detail, 
with  the  theaters  occupied  ;  but  they  give  an  ac- 
count of  the  players,  patrons,  appearances  at  court, 
and  careers,  both  in  London  and  the  provinces, 
of  each  dramatic  company.  In  collecting  and 


analyzing  documentary  evidence,  as  well  as  in  pur- 
suing Fleay 's  conjectures  and  theories,  Mr.  Mur- 
ray has  made  full  and  discriminating  use  of  the 
work  of  his  predecessors  in  this  field,  especially  of 
Mr.  Greg's  admirable  edition  of  ffenslowe's  Diary. 
Unfortunately  he  does  not  seem  to  have  seen  Feu- 
illerat's  Documents  relating  to  the  office  of  the 
Revels,1  or  Dr.  Gildersleeve's  illuminating  Gov- 
ernment Regulation  of  the  Elizabethan  Drama 
(1908). ' 

The  material  collected  by  Mr.  Murray's  re- 
searches is  of  high  worth  ;  his  compilations  and 
reprints  seem,  so  far  as  my  limited  examination 
goes,  comprehensive  and  accurate.  It  is  on  his 
interpretation  and  discussion  of  evidence  in  the 
histories  of  the  companies  that  I  wish  to  offer  some 
criticism.  Here  he  falls  into  errors  not  uncom- 
mon among  scholars,  and  especially  likely  to  beset 
the  writers  of  history  in  a  field  where  the  evi- 
dence is  fragmentary  and  where  conclusions  must 
be  in  large  measure  conjectural  and  speculative. 
The  facts  that  we  have  about  the  dramatic  com- 
panies— notwithstanding  Mr.  Murray' s  additions — 
are  still  insufficent  for  a  full  history.  At  every 
point  one  is  obliged  to  distinguish  between  what  is 
known,  what  is  probable,  and  what  is  mere  conjec- 
ture; and  at  every  point  one  must  be  on  guard 
against  forcing  far-reaching  generalizations  from 
uncertain  evidence  or  still  more  uncertain  guesses. 
Mr.  Murray  has  undoubtedly  tried  to  avoid  Mr. 
Fleay 's  faults  in  these  respects  and  has  usually 
succeeded  in  discriminating  between  fact  and  con- 
jecture ;  but  like  Fleay,  he  has  been  too  eager  to 
derive  complete  and  final  conclusions  from  incom- 
plete and  shaky  evidence.  Still  further,  his  evi- 
dence is  from  too  narrow  a  field.  The  extended 
and  unexpected  fields  into  which  a  small  problem 
may  lead  the  investigator,  give  literary  research 
both  its  chief  difficulty  and  its  chief  delight.  No 
one  can  undertake  to  solve  the  vexing  problems 
of  Elizabethan  stage  history  from  an  examination 
of  a  single  restricted  field.  A  history  of  the  com- 
panies should  be  based  not  only  on  the  document- 
ary records  of  performances,  but  also  on  bio- 
graphical data  in  regard  to  actors  and  writers,  on 
the  evidences  for  dates  of  the  plays,  on  a  thorough 
study  of  governmental  regulations  of  the  theaters, 

1  Bang's  Materialien,  vol.  XXI,  1908. 

*  Columbia  University  Studies  in  English. 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


121 


on  data  in  regard  to  the  playhouses,  and  on  a 
study  of  the  plays  themselves  in  connection  with 
the  companies  that  performed  them.  All  these 
matters,  not  to  speak  of  wider  fields  of  political 
and  literary  history,  are  so  intimately  related  that 
it  is  very  difficult  to  isolate  any  one  of  them  and 
give  that  satisfactory  treatment.  Mr.  Murray  is 
writing  history  on  the  basis  of  information  that 
needs  interpretation  or  checking  by  means  of  data 
from  many  adjoining  fields.  In  volumes  like 
these,  which  must  be  used  mainly  as  reference 
books,  it  would  have  been  desirable  to  confine  the 
histories  of  the  companies  to  bare  statements  of 
what  is  absolutely  established  by  documentary 
evidence,  and  relegate  all  controversial  matter  to 
foot-notes  or  appendices.  As  the  volumes  stand, 
the  student  will  be  compelled  to  go  behind  the 
histories  to  the  collections  of  facts  and  records,  for 
Mr.  Murray's  method  of  interpreting  evidence  is 
both  too  rigid  and  too  narrow. 

One  of  his  most  serious  errors,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  in  his  treatment  of  the  closing  of  the  theaters 
during  the  plague.  Since  his  conclusions  play  a 
considerable  part  in  his  histories  of  all  the  com- 
panies, and  since  he  opposes  my  discussion  of  the 
subject  published  some  ten  years  ago,*  I  shall 
venture  to  treat  the  matter  at  some  length.  He 
revises  Fleay's  conflicting  statements  and  sets 
forth  a  new  account  of  the  governmental  regu- 
lations concerning  the  closing  of  the  theaters  dur- 
ing the  plague,  and  he  then  examines  the  evidence 
that  I  had  offered  to  show  that  the  theaters  were 
open  in  1608  and  1609  in  spite  of  such  regu- 
lations. Having  disposed  of  this  evidence  to  his 
satisfaction,  he  regards  it  as  an  established  con- 
clusion that  the  theaters  were  always  closed  when 
the  regulations  required.  He  has  consequently 
made  all  his  histories  accord  with  his  understand- 
ing of  these  regulations.  He  overlooks  or  neglects 
my  contention  that  the  governmental  ordinances 
were  at  best  irregularly  enforced  and  often  vio- 
lated, and  consequently  cannot  be  taken  as  fixing 
the  periods  of  closing  the  theaters,  especially  at  a 
time  when  the  plague  was  not  very  severe.  Miss 
Gilderslee ve' s  full  discussion  has  made  this  con- 
tention far  more  convincing  than  did  my  brief 

'  The  Influence  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  on  Shakespeare, 
1901,  pp.  14-18.  Mr.  Murray's  discussion  is  in  vol.  n, 
pp.  171-179. 


comments,  and  Mr.  Murray  would  hardly  have 
neglected  this  aspect  of  the  case  if  he  had  had  the 
good  fortune  to  read  her  monograph. 

To  begin  with,  his  account  of  the  regulations  is 
far  from  certain :  if  it  is  more  correct  than  Fleay's, 
it  is  much  more  conjectural  than  Miss  Gilder- 
sleeve's.  He  adopts  here,  as  elsewhere  in  the 
book,  the  year  1575-6  as  the  date  for  the  import- 
ant communication  from  the  city  authorities  to  the 
Privy  Council ;  but  the  date  of  this  document  is 
uncertain,  and  convincing  evidence  has  been  ad- 
vanced to  prove  that  it  was  written  later  than 
1582.*  Moreover,  Mr.  Murray's  interpretation  of 
the  results  of  this  letter  is  no  surer  than  his  date; 
he  fails  to  consider  its  relation  to  the  petition  and 
proposals  of  the  players  to  which  it  replies;  and  so 
assumes  a  prior  regulation  for  50  deaths  a  week, 
altho  this  is  merely  what  the  players  proposed. 
He  also  jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  the  proposals 
of  the  city  were  adopted  by  the  Privy  Council. 
Really  there  is  no  certainty  of  any  regulations 
being  enforced  prior  to  this  document,  or  what 
regulations  the  Privy  Council  proceeded  to  adopt. 
Probably,  as  Miss  Gildersleeve  suggests,  the 
result  was  a  compromise  measure.  So  far  as  the 
suburbs  are  concerned,  where  the  public  play- 
houses were  erected,  Mr.  Murray's  conclusion  that 
plays  were  prohibited  when  deaths  from  the  plague 
exceeded  fifty  a  week,  is  not  improbable. 

His  further  discussion  rests  in  part  on  these  un- 
certain conclusions;  and  without  following  it  in 
detail  I  shall  merely  state  what  the  facts  are.  In 

1603,  a  terrible  plague  year,  the  royal  patent  for 
the  King's  Men  provides  merely  that  they  may 
perform  ' '  when  the  infection  of  the  plague  shall 
decrease,  "but  the  draft  of  the  patent  to  the  Queen's 
Men,  1603,  and  the  order  of  the  Privy  Council, 

1604,  both  forbid  playing  when  deaths  from  the 
plague  amount  to  more  than  thirty  weekly.  There 
is  no  provision  whatever  in  regard  to  the  plague  in 
the  patents  granted  to  various  companies  in  1606, 
1609,  1610,  and  1613.     Not  until  1619  do  we 

4  See  Gildersleeve,  op.  rit.,  pp.  156-159;  164,5;  and  173. 
175,  and  E.  K.  Chambers,  The  Academy,  Aug.  24,  1895. 
The  documents  are  in  the  Lansdowne  MSS.  and  some  of 
them  were  printed  by  Collier,  English  Dramatic  Poetry,  I, 
214  ff.  The  document,  omitted  by  Collier,  which  Miss 
Gildersleeve  prints  (pp.  172,173)  is  especially  important, 
as  it  alludes  to  the  Paris  Garden  disaster  and  thus  deter- 
mines its  date  as  later  than  Jan.  13,  1583. 


122 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


have  further  documentary  evidence,  when,  in  the 
Patent  for  the  King' s  Men,  forty  is  fixed  as  the 
legal  number.  This  is  again  mentioned  in  the 
patent  of  1625.  Entries  in  Herbert's  office  book 
for  1636-37  are  not  altogether  clear  but  seem  to 
indicate  that  forty  remained  the  limit.  In  the 
literature  of  the  period  there  are  many  references 
to  regulations  on  the  plague,  and  Mr.  Murray  is 
perhaps  right  in  drawing  from  these  indications 
of  a  change  made  somewhere  between  1607  and 
1610;  by  that  time  forty,  and  not  thirty,  seems  to 
be  regarded  as  the  fixed  number.  Allusions  of 
this  sort  are,  however,  widely  dispersed,  and  a 
thorough  search  would  be  necessary  before  ven- 
turing a  conclusion.  It  will  be  seen  that  for  the 
whole  period  1576-1642,  we  have  only  scant  evi- 
dence as  to  what  the  regulations  actually  were. 

So  much  for  the  regulations  themselves.  Let 
us  see  their  bearing  on  the  particular  period. 
The  plague,  which  had  been  prevalent  since  the 
great  outbreak  of  1603,  still  caused  deaths  of 
over  forty  a  week,  with  the  exception  of  two  or 
three  isolated  weeks,  when  the  number  dropped 
just  below  forty,  from  July  28,  1608  to  November 
30,  1609.  This  would,  according  to  Fleay  and 
Mr.  Murray,  cause  the  complete  closing  of  the 
theaters  for  a  period  of  seventeen  months.  I  had 
contended,  on  the  contrary,  that  strict  inforcement 
of  the  regulations  was  improbable  under  these 
conditions,  and  had  also  advanced  positive  evidence 
of  theatrical  activity  during  the  period.  Mr. 
Murray's  examination  of  my  evidence  that  the 
theaters  were  actually  open  need  not  be  considered 
here.  Any  one  who  will  read  my  statement  and 
compare  it  with  Mr.  Murray's  can  come  to  his 
own  conclusions.  The  only  new  evidence  that 
Mr.  Murray  has  on  the  matter  is  from  the  pro- 
vincial records.  As  he  says,  "  There  are  recorded 
several  visits  of  the  King's,  Queen's,  and  Prince's 
companies  during  1608,  showing  clearly  that  these 
companies  did  travel  during  that  year."  5  To  be 
sure  they  travelled  that  year,  as  in  many  years  ; 
but  his  tables  do  not  show  that  they  travelled  any 
more  in  this  period  than  in  many  others  when  the 
plague  was  not  prevalent.  The  King's  Men,  for 
example,  were  at  Coventry  in  October,  1608,  sev- 
eral places  in  May,  1609,  and  in  Dover  in  July, 
1609  ;  but  they  were  also  travelling  as  much  in 

5  Page  177. 


1607,  and  were  in  Barnstaple  on  July  9,  although 
the  plague  had  been  below  forty  a  week  for  seven 
months.  The  companies  frequently  travelled  for 
various  reasons,  and  there  is  no  indication  of  any 
large  amount  of  provincial  travelling  by  the  com- 
panies in  this  period,  1608-1609. 

But  the  major  premise  of  my  contention  was 
'  •'  that  there  is  no  certainty  that  any  regulation 
prohibiting  theatrical  performances  during  the 
plague  was  rigidly  enforced,  .  .  When  fear  of  the 
plague  was  not  excessive  it  seems  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  the  regulations  were  unenforced  or 
evaded."6  Miss  Gildersleeve' s  examination  of 
government  regulation  of  the  Elizabethan  theater 
has  made  plain  how  extremely  unlikely  it  is  that 
any  regulation  was  ever  rigidly,  carefully,  and  uni- 
versally enforced.  Her  conclusions  in  regard  to 
the  plague  regulation  are  substantiated  by  her  ex- 
tensive study  of  the  relations  of  city  and  court  to 
the  theatrical  companies.  I  quote  from  her  con- 
cluding summary  : 

' '  Judging  from  the  extreme  laxness  with  which 
most  laws  seem  to  have  been  enforced,  we  should 
indeed  be  chary  of  believing  that  the  plague  rule 
was  followed  with  precision.  Probably  the  play- 
ers often  disobeyed  it,  as  did  the  Cockpit  company 
in  May,  1637.  And  apparently  the  Master  of 
the  Revels  sometimes  secured  for  them  some  re- 
laxation of  it.  That  it  was  by  no  means  a  regu- 
lation operating  with  mechanical  exactness,  but 
was  subject  to  variation  according  to  different 
influences  and  personalities,  and  the  will  of  various 
high  officials,  appears  from  an  interesting  account, 
given  in  a  letter  from  Garrard  to  Wentworth,  of 
a  meeting  of  the  Privy  Council. ' ' 7 

The  folly  of  maintaining  that  the  regulations 
worked  mechanically  and  precisely  seems  to  me 
manifest ;  it  is  folly  to  do  so  when  other  evidence 
opposes  and  when  the  plague  was  comparatively 
mild,  and  it  is  unsafe  to  do  so  for  any  time.  The 
only  safe  assumption  for  the  plague  periods  is  that 
theatrical  activity  was  interrupted  and  lessened. 
Mr.  Murray  insists  on  his  theatrical  regulations, 
not  only  for  1608  and  1609,  but  for  the  entire 
period.  Whenever  the  plague  deaths  were  fifty, 
forty,  or  thirty  per  week,  according  as  he  inter - 

6  Influence  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  p.  15. 

T  Government  Regulation,  pp.  213,  214.  See  also  Fleay's 
partial  withdrawal  of  his  theory  when  he  places  Cymbcline 
in  the  autumn  of  1609.  History  of  the  Stage,  p.  162. 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


123 


prets  the  law  for  different  periods,  he  assumes 
that  the  companies  were  not  acting  in  the  city  but 
were  probably  travelling  in  the  councry.  In  this 
way  he  vitiates  his  histories  of  all  the  companies. 
Mr.  Murray's  treatment  of  the  plague  may 
serve  to  indicate  what  I  mean  by  the  rigidity  and 
narrowness  of  his  method.  The  same  character- 
istics can  be  found  in  his  treatment  of  other  mat- 
ters ;  they  are  most  evident  in  cases  of  govern- 
mental regulation,  where  Miss  Gildersleeve's 
discussion  affords  us  the  opportunity  of  comparing 
his  theories  with  a  recent  and  better  informed 
treatment  of  the  same  subjects.  Take,  for  example, 
the  matter  of  licenses.  Licenses  for  theatrical 
companies  were  borrowed,  forged,  and  stolen,  and 
perhaps  also  traded  and  bought  ;  hence,  particu- 
larly during  Elizabeth's  reign,  the  possession  of  a 
license  was  by  no  means  certain  proof  that  the 
possessors  formed  an  organization  authorized  to 
enjoy  the  patronage  indicated.  Further,  during 
the  Stuart  reigns,  it  seems  possible  that  under  one 
license, — as  that  for  the  King's  Men, — one  com- 
pany may  have  been  acting  regularly  in  London, 
while  another  detachment  of  the  same  company 
was  acting  in  the  country.  These  considerations 
might  be  supported  if  space  permitted.  Their 
significance  may  be  illustrated  briefly  from  Mr. 
Murray's  treatment  of  the  Queen's  companies 
during  Elizabeth's  reign.  He  notes  that  there 
were  two  Queen's  companies  in  1588,  but  explains 
the  multiplication  of  the  Queen's  Men  by  assert- 
ing : 

"This  shows  that  after  1574,  at  least,  all  the 
companies  who  expected  to  perform  before  the 
Queen  at  Christmas,  such  as  the  Earl  of  Leices- 
ter's, the  Earl  of  Warwick's,  Lord  Clinton's,  St. 
Paul's  choir  boys,  etc.,  as  well  as  the  Court  inter- 
lude players,  sometimes  called  themselves  '  Her 
Majesty's  players.'  Probably  they  did  this  only 
when  in  London,  to  avoid  the  Lord  Mayor's  regu- 
lations against  players,  for  when  in  the  provinces, 
they  seem  to  have  regularly  appeared  under  the 
titles  of  their  respective  patrons." 

In  this  discussion  he  is  misled  again  by  accepting 
the  old  dating  of  the  documents  in  the  Lausdowne 
manuscripts  as  1574-1576,  instead  of  1582-1584, 
as  now  seems  almost  certain.  But  his  inferences 
show  a  reluctance  to  admit  exceptions  to  his  rules. 

•Vol.  i,  p.  5. 


As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  various  and  conflicting 
references  to  the  Queen's  companies  before  1583, 
and  also  after  that  date,  indicate  nothing  more 
than  great  confusion  in  assuming  that  title.  It 
seems  to  me  very  dangerous  to  assume  as  an  estab- 
lished rule  that  every  reference  to  a  particular 
company  shows  that  that  company  was  then  absent 
from  London  and  travelling  about  the  country. 
To  this  rule,  as  I  have  already  noted,  there  may 
be  many  exceptions. 

Another  theory,  which  Mr.  Fleay  pressed  too 
hard,  is  to  the  effect  that  all,  or  nearly  all, 
dramatists  were  regularly  attached  to  the  service 
of  particular  companies.  This  seems  to  be  adopted 
by  Mr.  Murray,  at  least  in  the  case  of  Ben  Jon- 
son,  where  it  is  not  at  all  applicable.  Apparently, 
it  is  this  theory  which  impels  him  to  the  old  error 
that  Jonson  left  the  employ  of  Henslowe  after  the 
duel  with  Spenser  and  that  Every  Man  in  His 
Humour  was  acted  in  November,  1598.  As  ap- 
pears in  a  letter  to  Dudley  Carleton,  Every  Man  in 
His  Humour  was  first  performed  before  September 
20,  1598,9  the  duel  was  on  September  22,  1598. 
There  is  no  real  evidence  that  Jonson  ever  acted 
with  the  King's  Men.  Aubrey's  allusion  to  his 
acting  at  the  "  Green  Curtain  "  may  be  true,  but 
it  is  by  no  means  sure  when  he  acted  there,  or 
whether  the  Chamberlain's  Men  ever  acted  there. 
The  reference  in  Marston's  Scourge  of  Villainy 
can  hardly  be  said  to  prove  anything. 

Take  one  more  instance,  in  which  Mr.  Murray 
becomes  entangled  by  one  of  Fleay 's  theories — 
the  date  of  The  Scornful  Lady.  The  matter  is  not 
of  much  importance,  but  it  offers  a  fair  example 
of  the  complications  that  are  always  arising  in 
Elizabethan  chronology.  The  Quarto, — 1616, 
states  that  the  play  was  ' '  acted  by  the  children  of 
Her  Majesty's  Revels  in  the  Blackfriars."  Now, 
the  Queen's  Revels  apparently  ceased  to  use  that 
name  after  1605,  when  they  were  in  trouble  over 
Eastward  Ho  !,  but  continued  to  use  the  Black- 
friars  theater  until  August,  1608,  when  the  lease 
was  resold  to  Burbage.  In  January,  1610,  a 
new  company  called  the  Queen's  Revels  acted  in 
Whitefriars.  What  happened  to  the  original  com- 
pany from  August,  1608,  to  January,  1610,  is 

9  Mr.  Murray  quote3  the  letter  of  this  date  from  Tobie 
Matthew  to  Dudley  Carleton  mentioning  the  play,  but 
sticks  to  the  later  date  in  his  text ;  vol.  i,  p.  101. 


124 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


unknown — probably  they  disbanded  ;  but  perhaps 
they  kept  up  some  sort  of  an  organization.  By  a 
devious  argument,  which  I  have  elsewhere  exam- 
ined,10 Mr.  Fleay  was  led  to  suppose  that  they 
retained  possession  of  Blackf  riars  until  1610,  and 
that  Burbage's  company,  the  Kings'  Men,  did  not 
take  possession  of  that  theater  until  that  date. 
According  to  Fleay 's  theory  that  the  theaters 
were  closed  because  of  the  plague,  the  only  time 
during  1608-1609  when  there  was  acting  at 
Blackfriars  was  from  November  30  to  January  4, 
1909.  It  is  during  this  month  that  he  dates  The 
Scornful  Lady,  and  he  uses  this  assignment  as 
both  the  cause  and  effect  for  his  argument  that 
the  Kings'  Men  did  not  occupy  Blackfriars.  But 
all  this  is  conjecture  on  conjecture,  and  the  refer- 
ences to  the  Cleve  wars  in  The  Scornful  Lady  are 
the  surest  terminus  a  quo  for  its  date.  These 
references,  which  Mr.  Murray  and  I  have  both 
discussed,11  seem  to  me  more  likely  to  have  been 
written  in  1610  or  1611  than  in  1609.  Moreover, 
The  Scornful  Lady  was  a  popular  play,  and 
the  references  to  Blackfriars  in  the  Quarto  of 
1616  may  refer  not  to  the  original  but  to  later  per- 
formances of  the  play  in  the  second  Blackfriars 
theater,  which  was  built  in  1615-17  ;  or,  more 
probably,  to  a  joint  occupancy  of  the  Black- 
friars by  the  Kings'  Men  and  the  Revels  com- 
pany. I  am  free  to  admit  that  it  is  quite 
possible  that  the  first  Queen' s  Revels  gave  some 
plays  in  Blackfriars  in  1609,  and  that  The 
Scornful  Lady  was  acted  there  at  the  close  of  that 
year  ;  but  these  matters  are  very  doubtful,  and 
other  explanations  are  at  least  possible.  I  merely 
protest  that  it  is  dangerous  to  use  Fleay' s  conjec- 
tures in  regard  to  the  occupancy  of  the  theater  as 
a  support  for  the  date  of  this  play,  and  it  is  also 
dangerous  to  regard  the  date  of  this  play  as  fixed 
and  to  use  it  as  a  support  for  Fleay' s  theory  of 
the  occupancy  of  the  theaters.  Mr.  Murray,  how- 
ever, is  not  puzzled  by  the  matter,  but  states  his 
conclusions  in  a  brief  and  what  might  seem  to  the 
casual  reader  a  simple  and  conclusive  paragraph. 1J 
It  would  not  be  difficult  to  go  on  criticising 
details  of  stage  history  that  rest  on  thin  ice,  if  not 
on  certain  mistakes.  Government  regulations  did 

10 *  Influence,  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  pp.  18,  19. 
"Ibid.,  85-87  ;  Murray,  I,  153  n. 
12  Vol.  I,  p.  153. 


not  work  mechanically.  Licenses  for  companies 
were  not  always  authoritative  ;  the  theaters  were 
not  always  reserved  for  a  single  company  ;  play- 
wrights were  not  always  restricted  to  employment 
by  one  company.  The  data  for  the  stage  history 
of  the  Elizabethan  drama  are  meager  and  con- 
flicting. Fixed  conclusions  must  be  relatively 
few  in  comparison  with  those  that  are  probably 
or  merely  conjectural.  It  is  necessary  to  advance 
to  these  probabilities  without  resting  too  much  on 
general  theories  and  without  resting  one  conjecture 
too  heavily  on  another,  and  with  a  full  indication 
of  the  range  of  possible  error.  These  are  the  ele- 
mentary rules  for  procedure  ;  they  are,  however, 
too  often  forgotten  by  investigators  under  stress  of 
their  special  interests  or  enthusiasms.  This  is  my 
excuse  for  repeating  them  here  and  illustrating 
some  violations  ;  but  in  so  doing  I  do  not  wish  to 
criticise  captiously,  or  to  seem  to  deny  to  Mr. 
Murray  the  great  credit  that  his  work  deserves. 
In  his  history  he  has  followed  and  exposed  many 
of  Fleay' s  conjectures,  and  from  a  consideration 
of  old  and  new  evidence  has  written  a  far  better 
and  more  reliable  history  of  the  companies  than 
his  brilliant  predecessor,  who  essayed  a  wider  field. 
Mr.  Fleay' s  wider  researches  were  injured,  not 
merely  by  his  fondness  for  conjecture,  but  by  his 
blind  adherence  to  theories  of  stage  history.  Mr. 
Murray  has  kept  too  much  to  these  rigid  and 
mechanical  methods,  and  he  lacks — as  who  does 
not? — Mr.  Fleay 's  immensely  wide  knowledge  of 
all  sides  of  the  Elizabethan  drama.  It  is  not 
then  as  an  historian  of  the  stage,  but  as  an  inves- 
tigator and  discoverer  of  new  evidence  that  he 
wins  our  unqualified  praise.  As  storehouses  of 
much  old  and  much  new  data  in  respect  to  the 
companies  his  books  are  of  manifest  value  and 
will  probably  be  better  appreciated  as  students 
become  fully  acquainted  with  them. 


ASHLEY  H.  THORNDIKE. 


Columbia  University. 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


125 


MARIO  SCHIFF,  Lafille  d' alliance  de  Montaigne: 
Marie  de  Gournay.  Essai  suivi  de  "1'Egalite" 
des  homines  et  des  ferames  "  et  du  ' '  Grief  des 
dames,"  avec  des  variantes,  des  notes,  des  ap- 
pendices et  im  portrait.  Paris  :  Champion, 
1910.  12rao.,  147  pp. 

In  Studi  di  Filologia  moderna  for  1909  M. 
Mario  Schiff  published  an  article  called  Lafille 
d' alliance  de  Montaigne :  Mademoiselle  de  Gour- 
nay, and  appended  to  it  a  list  of  Marie  de  Gour- 
nay's  works,  reprints  of  her  autobiographical 
poem  and  of  the  eloges  given  her  by  two  Italian 
scholars,  and  a  brief  account  of  her  relations  with 
her  disciple,  Anne-Marie  de  Schurman.  At  the 
same  time  he  announced  his  intention  of  reprint- 
ing Mile  de  Gournay' s  two  essays  in  defense  of 
her  sex.  Last  year  he  realized  this  purpose  by 
publishing  the  text  of  her  Egalite  des  homines  et 
des  femmes  and  her  Grief  des  Dames  with  a  list  of 
variant  readings  and  a  few  introductory  pages  of 
criticism,  but,  desiring  to  make  a  larger  book 
than  these  fifty  pages  of  essay  and  criticism,  he 
reprinted  in  the  same  volume  his  article  of  the 
year  before,  retaining  the  four  appendices  and 
adding  a  fifth  on  the  reputation  of  Montaigne's 
Essays  during  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  From  the  title  which  he  gave  to  this 
collection  of  articles  he  shows  that  he  considers 
his  study  of  the  woman  more  important  than  his 
reprint  of  her  essays.  I  shall  therefore  criticize 
his  volume  as  primarily  a  treatment  of  the  life 
and  works  of  Montaigne' s  fille  d' alliance. 

And  first  let  me  say  that  there  is  room  for  an 
exhaustive  study  of  this  interesting  woman,  who 
touched  on  so  many  sides  the  literary  and  social 
life  of  France  during  the  eighty  years  that  fol- 
lowed her  birth  in  1565.  She  was  that  enthusias- 
tic friend  of  Montaigne  who  published  his  Essays 
after  his  death  and  did  much  to  establish  them  in 
the  public  esteem.  She  made  a  brave,  if  futile 
fight  to  uphold  Ronsard  against  Malherbe.  She 
ought  to  be  remembered  gratefully  by  her  sex  as 
one  of  the  first  defenders  of  women  against  their 
natural  oppressors.  She  was  novelist,  poet,  es- 
sayist, philologist.  To  those  interested  in  the 
social  life  of  the  early  seventeenth  century  her 
defense  of  herself  and  the  piquant  anecdotes  to 


which  she  gave  rise  constitute  not  her  least  claim 
to  remembrance. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  several  scholars 
have  written  about  her  during  the  last  fifty  years. 
Feugere,1  Livet,2  Stapfer,*  Paul  Bonnefon  *  have 
discussed  her  in  essays  that  present  the  main  facts 
of  her  life  and  show  the  importance  of  her  work. 
None  of  these  attempts  to  be  a  complete  study  ; 
none  contains  more  than  some  hundred  pages 
out  of  a  larger  treatise.  They  leave  room  for 
a  further  consideration  of  Mile  de  Gournay 's 
writings  and  of  contemporary  references  to  her 
life  and  works.  But  if  such  a  study  is  under- 
taken, it  should  aim  to  be  definitive,  and  not 
simply  to  add  another  commendable  essay  to  the 
four  we  already  possess. 

M.  Schiff  appears  to  have  seen  this  opportunity, 
but  he  has  not  yet  given  us  the  definitive  treatise. 
A  comparison  of  his  essay  with  those  that  pre- 
ceded it  shows  that  he  adds  few  facts  to  what  was 
already  known  and  emphasizes  less  fully  than 
Bonnefon  and  Stapfer  the  main  ideas  which  Mile 
de  Gournay  represented.  What  he  has  done  that 
is  new  is  to  collect  a  few  details  from  the  letters 
of  Pasquier,  Balzac,  and  Chapelain  that  other 
biographers  had  overlooked,8  to  go  further  than 
they  in  his  use  of  Marolles  and  Sorel,6  to  glean 
some  facts  from  Marie's  accounts  of  herself,7  to 
quote  at  length  passages  to  which  his  predecessors 
had  briefly  referred.8  He  treats  his  heroine  fairly, 
not  hesitating  to  show  the  deliberate  way  in  which 
she  sought  royal  favor  and  her  excessive  flattery 
of  the  sovereign.  His  criticism  of  others  seems 
justified  in  the  cases  of  M.  Strowski,  Feugere, 
and  M.  Ascoli,9  but  his  difference  of  opinion  with 
M.  Bonnefon  as  to  whether  Marie  visited  Lipsius 
while  in  Belgium  leads  to  no  conclusion.10  His 
passing  objection  u  to  Li  vet's  classification  of  Mile 
de  Gournay  as  a  precieuse  is  not  sufficiently  sus- 
tained by  his  mentioning  her  attack  upon  these 

1  Lesfemmes  poeles  awxvi«  si£de,  Paris,  1860,  pp.  127-232. 

1  Precieux  et  precieuses,  Paris,  1859,  pp.  261-291. 

8  La  famillt  et  les  amis  de  Montaigne,  Paris,  1896,  pp. 
157-236. 

4  Montaigne  et  sea  amis,  Paris,  1898,  u,  315-408  (first 
edition,  1892). 

6  Cf.  pp.  5,  7,  19,  29,  42. 

«Cf.  pp.  22,  45,  26,  39.  7Cf.  pp.  20,  22,  32. 

8Cf.  pi>.  13,  38,  39.  9Cf.  pp.  14,  38,  47. 

10 Cf.  p.  18.  "Cf.  p.  27. 


126 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


"donselles  a  bouche  sucre"e."  As  M.  SchifTs 
predecessors  have  pointed  out,  she  is  one  of  the 
precieuses  in  her  use  of  metaphors,  her  display  of 
pedantry  and  concetti,  just  as  she  differs  from 
them  in  her  use  of  crude  and  antiquated  terms. 
She  may  claim  the  precieuses  as  her  offspring, 
though  she  must  have  appeared  to  them  sadly  out 
of  date. 

Of  course,  if  M.  Schiff  limits  his  essay  to  fifty 
octavo  pages,  he  is  obliged  to  omit  much  that 
others  have  given.  He  slurs  over  Marie's  r6le  as 
novelist  and  poet.  He  should  not  dismiss  her 
Proumenoir  without  some  note  of  its  position 
among  early  French  novels  and  without  gathering 
from  it  the  indications  it  throws  upon  the  charac- 
ter of  its  author.  His  criticism  of  her  verses  is 
limited  to  quoting  one  poem,  mentioning  the  sub- 
jects of  a  few  others,  and  declaring  that  her 
' '  petits  vers  sont  mauvais. ' '  Though  the  last 
remark  is  true,  there  are  some  happy  exceptions 
to  it.  Her  noble  quatrain  on  Jeanne  d'Arc  is 
better  worth  quoting  than  her  grotesque  lines  on 
the  Bain  du  Roy.12  It  is  still  more  regrettable 
that  he  discusses  so  little  the  part  she  played 
as  editor  of  Montaigne  and  defender  of  sixteenth 
century  speech. 

Therefore,  as  his  essay  neither  summarizes  com- 
pletely what  is  already  known  of  Mile  de  Gour- 
nay,  nor  gives  much  new  information  or  comment 
concerning  her,  it  remains  unimportant  as  a  con- 
tribution to  our  knowledge  of  the  authoress,  or  to 
our  understanding  of  what  her  labors  meant  to 
French  literature  and  society  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. But  it  gains  in  value,  if  we  demand  less  of 
it.  If  we  consider  the  essay,  not  as  the  main  por- 
tion of  the  work,  but  as  an  introduction  to  a  pro- 
founder  study  of  Mile  de  Gournay  in  one  of  her 
special  activities,  we  find  that  its  utility  becomes 
immediately  obvious.  Now,  unless  M.  Schiff  in- 
tended writing  a  thorough  account  of  Mile  de 
Gournay 's  various  occupations,  he  could  not  have 
done  better  than  to  study  her  as  "la  mere  du 
feminisme  moderne. ' ' 13  With  the  exception  of 
Stapfer,  critics  have  treated  this  side  of  her  sum- 
marily. M.  Schiff  writes  himself,  "II  est  tout  a 
fait  curieux  de  const ater  que  les  critiques  qui  se 

12  Page  33. 

1S  A  title  applied  to  her  by  M.  Joran  and  quoted  by  M. 
Schiff,  p.  49. 


sont  occupe's  de  Marie  de  Gournay  n'ont  pas  fait 
de  ses  traites  en  faveur  des  femmes  et  des  nom- 
breuses  declarations  de  feminisme  qui  6maillent 
ses  ouvrages,  le  cas  qu'il  en  fallait  faire."  u 

We  should  have  expected  him,  then,  to  make 
his  study  of  Mile  de  Gournay  as  a  feminist  the 
core  of  his  work,  to  which  the  essay  I  have  criti- 
cized would  serve  as  an  attractive  and  informing 
introduction.  Indeed  he  seems  to  have  had  some 
such  intention  when  he  proposed  to  publish  her 
two  essays,  an  admirable  way  of  bringing  out  her 
right  to  be  considered  a  champion  of  her  sex. 
Despite  their  theological  arguments,  verbiage, 
classical  allusions,  lack  of  logic,  these  are  written 
with  a  picturesque  enthusiasm  that  does  not  ex- 
clude a  certain  moderation  in  their  demanding  for 
women  only  equality  with  men,  or  a  perception 
of  IIOAV  much  women's  inferiority  is  due  to  their 
education  and  the  treatment  accorded  them  by 
the  opposite  sex.  Moreover  M.  Schiff  has  proved 
a  careful  editor,  furnishing  an  elaborate  list  of 
variant  readings,  adding  to  the  text  the  few 
necessary  notes,  showing  that  the  main  ideas  and 
many  phrases  of  the  Grief  des  Dames  had  already 
appeared  in  their  author's  preface  to  the  1595 
edition  of  Montaigne's  Essays. 

But  this  is  not  enough.  He  should  have  col- 
lected the  views  on  feminism  that  she  published 
elsewhere  than  in  these  essays.  He  should  have 
developed  his  response  to  his  own  query  whether 
she  is  seeking  to  defend  herself  or  her  sex  in  her 
discussion  of  rights.  He  should  have  shown  just 
what  she  brought  to  this  discussion  that  was  new, 
in  what  respects  she  followed  earlier  writers.  In- 
stead of  so  doing,  he  confines  his  critical  estimate 
of  these  essays  to  a  few  pages,  loosely  joined  to 
his  previous  treatise,  in  which  he  analyses  the 
arguments  of  the  essays  and  makes  a  few  sug- 
gestive comments  concerning  them.  He  seems  to 
have  rushed  into  print  almost  as  soon  as  he  had 
his  texts  ready  for  publication  and  thus  misses  his 
second  opportunity  as  he  has  missed  his  first. 
He  does  not  atone  for  the  incompleteness  of  his 
general  sketch  of  Mile  de  Gouruay  by  a  thorough 
study  of  her  defense  of  women. 

And  this  is  the  more  unfortunate  as  M.  Schiff 
is  an  exact  scholar  who  shows  thorough  apprecia- 
tion of  the  value  of  the  personal  detail  and  the 


April,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


127 


original  document.  If  \ve  needed  proof  of  this, 
we  could  find  it  in  his  appendices,  where  he  in- 
creases our  knowledge  of  the  character  and 
achievement  of  Mile  de  Gournay  by  listing  the 
various  editions  of  her  writings,  by  republishiug 
the  text  of  her  "  autoportrait, "  by  showing  her 
influence  in  the  Low  Countries  and  the  respect  in 
which  she  was  held  in  Italy,  and  finally  by  demon- 
strating the  early  popularity  of  Montaigne's  Es- 
says, which  must  have  been  partly  due  to  the 
assiduous  labors  of  his  chosen  editor.  The  only 
fault  I  find  with  these  appendices  is  that  their 
addition  to  a  volume  already  composed  of  three 
separate  essays  deprives  the  book  of  a  unity  that 
might  have  been  attained  by  a  larger  central 
treatise,  into  which  could  have  been  incorporated 
the  facts  now  presented  without  proper  coordina- 
tion. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  M.  Schiff  has  made  pub- 
lic some  details  hitherto  overlooked  concerning 
the  life  and  works  of  Mile  de  Gournay,  that, 
despite  a  certain  lack  of  unity  in  his  volume,  he 
helps  to  renew  interest  in  an  unusual  personality, 
reprints  three  of  her  smaller  works  in  convenient 
and  scholarly  form,  suggests  various  ideas,  which 
might,  if  sufficiently  developed,  have  led  to  im- 
portant results.  But  he  scatters  his  energies  in 
too  many  directions,  he  has  not  enough  that  is 
new  in  fact  or  critical  estimate  to  make  his  book 
a  definitive  treatment  of  Marie  de  Gouruay,  and 
at  the  same  time  he  does  not  sufficiently  study 
her  role  of  feminist  to  make  that  the  central  por- 
tion of  his  work.  I  hope  that  he  has  already  felt 
the  force  of  this  rather  obvious  criticism,  and  that 
he  intends  to  publish  hereafter  either  a  complete 
study  of  Mile  de  Gournay  or  an  exhaustive  con- 
sideration of  her  position  in  the  modern  move- 
ment towards  the  equality  of  the  sexes. 


H.  CARRINGTON  LANCASTER. 


Amherst  College. 


CORRESPONDENCE 

Covacle,  NOT  conacle 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  :  —  Stratmaun-Bradley's  Middle-English 
Dictionary  gives  : 

Canacle,  conacle,  sb.?  mistake  for  covercle  ;  lid  of  a  cup. 
A.  P.  1461,  1515.  The  NED.  presumes  that  canacle, 
cornicle  [of  unknown  derivation  and  meaning]  is  '  a  cup.' 

The  word  has  been  recorded  only  in  the  two 
instances  of  E.  E.  A  Hit.  Poems,  edited  by  Morris. 


I  have  not  seen  the  MS.  and  do  not  know  how  far 
a  and  o  are  kept  distinct.  Laued  for  loued  in  the 
printed  text,  p.  85,  1.  1703,  looks  suspicious.  At 
any  rate,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  n  and  u  are 
written  alike.  The  editor  is  at  a  loss  about  sev- 
eral words  (see  pp.  11,  40,  50,  56,  82),  and  it  is 
beyond  all  probability  that  a  distinction  which  is 
rather  exceptional  with  fifteenth  century  scribes 
should  be  observed  in  a  MS.  that,  according  to 
the  preface,  is  written  in  a  small,  sharp,  irregular 
character  .  .  .  often  difficult  to  read. 

Couacle,  which,  of  course,  might  just  as  well  be 
read  conacle,  also  occurs  in  Partonope  of  Blois, 
Add.  MS.  35,288,  Brit.  Mus.  If.  13  b.  (now  at 
press;  11.  1076-78): 

Thys  cuppe  was  of  safer  ffyne, 
Hyt  moste  nedes  showe  well  wyne. 
pe  couacle  was  of  Rube  redde. 

The  last  line  runs  in  the  French  text,  ed.  Crape- 
let,  1.  1025  : 

Li  covercles  est  d'un  rubi. 

There  are  French  variants  of  couvercle  without 
r  (see  the  Complement  of  Godefroy),  but  the  Eng- 
lish form  rather  represents  an  independent  change 
from  covarcle  to  covacle,  due  to  the  analogy  of  the 
frequent  nouns  in  -acle, 

A.  TRAMPE  B^DTKER. 

University  of  Christiania,  Norway. 


A  NOTE  ON  '  A  BRITISH  ICARUS  ' 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — In  the  December  (1910)  issue  of  Mod- 
ern Language  Notes,  Professor  J.  M.  Hart,  in  his 
interesting  communication,  entitled,  A  British 
Icarus,  quotes  from  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  as 
follows:  "This  Prince  (Bladud)  was  a  very 
ingenious  man,  and  taught  necromancy  in  his 
kingdom,  nor  did  he  leave  off  pursuing  his  magi- 
cal operations,  till  he  attempted  to  fly  to  the  upper 
region  of  the  air  with  wings  which  he  had  pre- 
pared, and  fell  down  upon  the  temple  of  Apollo, 
in  the  city  of  Trinovantum,  where  he  was  dashed 
to  pieces."  This  is  evidently  the  source  of  the 
following  passage  in  Milton's  History  of  Britain, 
Bk.  1  :  "He  (Bladud)  was  a  man  of  great  in- 
vention, and  taught  Necromancy  :  till  having 
made  him  Wings  to  fly,  he  fell  down  upon  the 
Temple  of  Apollo  in  Trinovant,  and  so  dy'd." 
Such  a  passage  is  read  with  interest  in  connection 
with  the  following  from  the  introductory  portion 
of  the  same  book  :  "Nevertheless  there  being 


128 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


\_Vol.  xxvi,  No.  4. 


others  besides  the  first  supposed  Author,  men  not 
unread,  nor  unlerned  in  Antiquitie,  who  admit 
that  for  approved  story,  which  the  former  explode 
for  fiction,  and  seeing  that  ofttimes  relations  heer- 
tofore  accounted  fabulous  have  been  after  found 
to  contain  in  them  many  foot-steps,  and  reliques 
of  something  true,  as  what  we  read  in  Poets  of 
the  Flood,  and  Giants  little  beleev'd,  till  un- 
doubted witnesses  taught  us,  that  all  was  not 
fain'd  ;  I  have  therefore  deterniin'd  to  bestow 
the  telling  over  ev'n  of  these  reputed  Tales  ;  be 
it  for  nothing  else  but  in  favor  of  our  English 
Poets,  and  Rhetoricians,  who  by  thir  Art  will 
know,  how  to  use  them  judiciously."  In  the 
light  of  our  recent  interest  in  aviation,  Milton, 
thinking  of  Bladud,  might  have  added  to  "foot- 
steps and  reliques, ' '  prophecies  ' '  of  something 
true." 

Though  Milton  never  produced  a  poem  founded 
on  the  early  history  of  Britain,  is  it  not  possible 
that  he  made  judicious  use  of  the  story  of  the 
"British  Icarus"  in  the  following  passage  from 
Paradise  Lost,  2.  927-938,  which  so  strongly  sug- 
gests some  of  the  experiences  of  our  modern 
aeronauts  ? 

"At  last  his  Sail-broad  Vannes 
He  spreads  for  flight,  and  in  the  surging  smoak 
Uplifted  spurns  the  ground,  thence  many  a  League 
As  in  a  cloudy  Chair  ascending  rides 
Audacious,  but  that  seat  soon  failing,  meets 
A  vast  vacuitie  :  all  unawares 
Fluttring  his  pennons  vain  plumb  down  he  drops 
Ten  thousand  fadom  deep,  and  to  this  hour 
Down  had  been  falling,  had  not  by  ill  chance 
The  strong  rebuff  of  sotn  tumultuous  cloud 
Instinct  with  Fire  and  Nitre  hurried  him 
As  many  miles  aloft." 

ALLAN  H.  GILBERT. 

The  Cornell  University. 


BRIEF  MENTION 

No  more  important  aid  to  the  scientific  study  of 
the  French  language  has  appeared  in  recent  years 
than  the  Atlas  linguistique  de  la  France,1  which 
is  now  complete,  with  the  exception  of  the  index. 
Criticism  of  many  details  of  this  monumental  work 
is  possible,  and  attacks  on  the  general  plan  have 
not  been  wanting,  but  there  is  no  question  that 
this  series  of  maps  preserves  for  us  a  great  mass  of 
invaluable  material  that  was  on  the  point  of  pass- 
ing beyond  our  reach  ;  that  it  has  sensibly  modi- 
fied the  methods  of  etymological  study  ;  and  that 
it  has  given  to  the  accurate  recording  of  the  dia- 

1  Par  J.  Gillie"ron  et  E.  Edmond.  35  fascicules  in-folio 
de  50  cartes  chacun.  Paris,  Champion.  875  fr. 


lects  a  stimulus,  already  reflected  in  the  recent 
works  in  this  domain,  which  not  only  assures  a 
more  analytic  knowledge  of  the  French  patois,  but 
even  gives  promise  of  resulting  in  the  discovery 
of  principles  that  have  fundamental  bearing  on 
the  nature  of  linguistic  processes.  Students  of 
French  whose  means  do  not  permit  them  to  own 
the  work  should  at  least  see  that  it  is  at  hand  in 
all  research  libraries. 


A  book  of  great  interest  to  Romance  workers  is 
Meyer-Lubke' s  Etymological  Dictionary,  the  first 
instalment  of  which  has  just  appeaffTd  in  theSamm- 
lung  Romanischer  Elementar-  und  Handbucher.1 
The  arrangement  by  the  alphabetical  order  of  the 
Latin  etyma,  introduced  by  Korting,  is  main- 
tained, but  the  number  of  titles  is  substantially 
diminished  (1129  numbers  in  M-L  for  A-Biso, 
against  1425  in  K. )  by  a  wise  conservatism  in 
positing  hypothetical  Latin  forms.  Where  there 
is  no  positive  evidence  for  such  a  background  and 
where  at  the  same  time  the  form  can  be  derived 
by  affix  from  a  stem  existing  in  the  Romance  lan- 
guage in  question,  the  word  is  classed  under  the 
simplex.  Non -Latin  etyma  with  more  than  local 
reflexes  are  included,  while  late  learned  words  are 
omitted  and  dialect  forms  are  cited  only  where 
they  seem  to  throw  additional  light  on  the  devel- 
opment. The  aim  has  been  to  refer  to  essential 
bibliography,  tho  the  frequent  limitation  to  the 
latest  or  the  most  important  reference  is  sometimes 
liable  to  be  misleading.  The  discussion  is  exceed- 
ingly compact  (less  than  a  page  on  AMBIT  ARE 
and  AMBULAREas  against  some  five  pages  in  K. ), 
but  is  incisive  and  illuminating.  There  is  no  hesi- 
tation in  assuming  a  positive  attitude,  but  the 
decision  is  usually  backed  up  by  a  brief  phrase 
giving  its  essential  basis.  Etymologies  accounted 
clearly  abortive  are  passed  over  in  silence — per- 
haps a  few  that  merit  at  least  mention  sharing  this 
fate  with  less  worthy  companions.  The  section  of 
the  dictionary  now  before  us  suffices  to  demonstrate 
that  Professor  Meyer-Lubke  brings  to  the  difficult 
task  he  has  undertaken  the  skilled  touch  of  an 
experienced  scholar  and  writer,  and  it  is  with 
gratification  that  we  greet  a  work  that  will  put 
within  our  reach  his  great  store  of  etymological 
knowledge. 


1  Romanisches  etymoloyisches  Worterbuch.  Lieferung  1. 
Heidelberg,  Winter,  1911.  Svo.,  xxii-SO  pp.  Mk.  2. 
The  complete  work  will  comprise  about  900  pages. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES 


VOL.  XXVI. 


BALTIMOKE,   MAY,    1911. 


No.  5. 


THE  TRANSMISSION   AND   DATE   OF 
GENESIS  B. 

How  came  the  Old  Saxon  Genesis  to  Eng- 
land? Who  carried  it  thither?  When  was  it 
transplanted  from  the  Continent,  to  become  a 
riddle  and  a  testimony  of  international  rela- 
tions? These  questions  have  been  answered 
very  vaguely,  and  quite  without  support  of 
evidence.  An  Englishman  who  had  learned 
Old  Saxon  brought  it  home  from  the  Conti- 
nent, said  Professor  Sievers.1  Some  Saxon 
monk,  coming  to  England,  perhaps  the  John 
who  was  made  abbot  of  JGthelney  (Somerset) 
in  the  reign  of  Alfred,  introduced  the  poem, 
conjectured  ten  Brink.2  But  these  guesses 
have  done  little  more  than  hint  at  possibilities; 
they  have  been  the  merest  conjectures.  The 
historical  evidence  that  has  been  brought  for- 
ward is  of  a  kind  to  prove  the  influence  of 
England  on  Germany,  not  at  all  of  Germany 
on  England,  except  for  the  surprising  phe- 
nomenon of  Genesis  B  itself.  The  poem  is 
unique  from  every  point  of  view;  and  the 
puzzle  of  its  grafting  on  English  literature 
has  long  piqued  the  curiosity  of  scholars. 

With  considerable  diffidence,  since  I  can 
support  my  theory  with  nothing  but  circum- 
stantial evidence,  I  am  going  to  hazard  a  new 
conjecture  as  to  the  man  who  brought  the 
Old  Saxon  Genesis  to  England.  I  am  able, 
furthermore,  to  give  with  assurance  only  the 
initial  of  his  name,  though  I  can  show  that 
what  is  known  about  his  career  makes  his 
transmission  of  the  poem  both  possible  and, 
to  my  thinking,  probable. 

About  the  year  1000  there  was  written  a 
life  of  St.  Dunstan,3  who  had  died  in  988. 

1  Der  Heliand  und  die  angelsdchische  Genesis, 
p.  16. 

'History  of  English  Literature,  English  trans., 
1889,  i,  82,  note. 

'Edited  by  Stubbs,  Memorials  of  St.  Dunstan, 
1874  (Rolls  Series,  63),  pp.  3-52. 


The  author  of  this  Vita,  which  is  the  earliest 
extant  biography  of  the  great  archbishop,  de- 
scribes himself,  in  the  somewhat  fulsome  and 
pompous  prologue,  as  "  omnium  extimus 
sacerdotum  B.  vilisque  Saxonum  indigena." 
He  pleads  his  lack  of  qualifications  for  his 
task,  "nisi  forte  quse  vel  videndo  vel  audiendo, 
licet  intellectu  torpenti,  ab  ipso  didiceram, 
vel  etiam  ex  ejus  alumnis."  Twice  he  asserts 
that  he  has  seen  the  events  that  he  narrates. 
Because  of  his  description  of  himself  as  priest 
and  his  silence  as  to  Dunstan's  monastic  re- 
forms, one  may  infer  that  he  was  not  a  monk,4 
but  a  clerical  scholar  who  had  found  with 
Dunstan  both  service  and  friendship.  Quite 
clearly,  he  had  been  associated  with  Dunstan 
so  long  and  intimately  that  he  knew  the  whole 
course  of  the  saint's  life  and  could  write  a 
sketch  of  him  without  difficulty.  Bishop  Stubbs 
conjectured  that  he  got  the  stories  of  the  child- 
hood, and  of  the  early  temptations  and  visions, 
from  Dunstan's  own  lips.5  Indeed,  B.'s  work 
is  singularly  free  from  miracles  of  the  grosser 
sort;  it  illustrates  very  admirably  the  char- 
acter of  his  master,  and  thus  shows  his  claim 
to  sainthood. 

B.  everywhere  writes  as  a  friend  and  follower 
of  Dunstan,  but  incidentally  as  a  foreigner. 
Not  only  does  he  speak  of  himself  as  "  vilis 
Saxonum  indigena,"  but  he  refers  to  things 
English  as  a  native  would  not  have  done. 
Thus  an  evil  spirit  responds  to  Dunstan  "  voce 
Saxonica  se  ex  Orientis  regni  partibus  esse."8 
Again,  the  term  "  senioratus  "  for  "  patron  " 
is  used,  though  it  was  never  employed,  ac- 
cording to  Stubbs,  except  on  the  Continent.7 
From  such  indications  it  seems  clear  that  B. 
was  a  Saxon  scholar  from  the  Continent,  who 
had  found  a  patron  and  friend  in  Dunstan. 
He  seems  to  have  been  learned  according  to 

4  See  Stubbs,  p.  xi. 

5 Stubbs,    p.   Ivii.  "Cap.   33. 

7  See  the  discussion  of  B.'s  origin  by  Stubbs,  pp. 
xii-xviii. 


130 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xx vi,  No.  5. 


his  fashion,  for  he  quotes  a  poem  by  Sedulius,8 
and  accomplished  in  letters,  if  the  composition 
of  bad  verse  be  a  criterion;  but  he  cannot  be 
commended  for  his  Latin  style,  which  is 
cumbrous  and  sometimes  obscure.  He  seems, 
however,  to  have  been  devoted  to  his  master; 
and  he  gave  with  candor  and  insight  the  results 
of  his  personal  observation. 

By  a  brilliant  conjecture,  Bishop  Stubbs 
threw  further  light  on  B.,  showing  that  he 
was,  in  all  probability,  the  writer  of  three 
letters  of  the  period.  In  the  first  of  these,9 
a  man  who  calls  himself  "  B.  fssx  Christi- 
colarum,"  addresses  Dunstan's  successor  at 
Canterbury,  ^Ethelgar,  regretting  the  loss  of 
those  literary  and  educational  advantages  that 
his  youth  had  known  under  the  patronage 
of  the  Bishop  of  Liege,  since  whose  death  he 
has  been  exiled  from  Wisdom's  Court.  It 
appears  that  yEthelgar  has  commissioned  B. 
to  go  to  Winchester,  there  either  to  examine 
or  to  copy  a  manuscript  of  Aldhelm's  De 
Laudibus  Virginitatis.  The  second  letter 10 
was  written  by  a  man  who  places  himself 
under  the  protection  of  Dunstan,  describing 
himself  as  "  exilii  catenulis  admodum  retitus." 
In  the  third  letter,11  which  is  addressed  to 
some  person  whose  name  is  only  indicated  by 
the  initial  N.,  the  writer  calls  himself  "  bellus 
sed  causa,  si  dici  liceat,  infortunii  misellus." 
He  says  that,  after  leaving  his  patron  and 
crossing  the  sea,  he  has  run  into  debt  for  the 
purchase  or  hire  of  a  horse  on  landing,  and 
stands  in  danger  of  being  sold. 

The  circumstances  mentioned  in  these  letters, 
no  less  than  their  style,12  persuaded  Bishop 
Stubbs  that  they  were  written  by  one  man, 
and  that  he  was  the  author  of  the  early 

6  Cap.  36.  Two  verses  from  Veteris  et  Novi  Testa- 
menti  Collatio. 

•Printed  by  Stubbs,  pp.  385-388,  from  MSB.  Cott. 
Tib.  A.  15  and  Vesp.  A.  14. 

"Printed  by  Stubbs,  pp.  374-376,  from  MS.  Cott. 
Tib.  A.  15. 

"Printed  by  Stubbs,  p.  390,  from  MS.  Cott.  Tib. 
A.  15. 

13  See  the  discussion  by  Stubbs,  pp.  xxii-xxvi.  I 
should  note  that  the  letter-writer,  like  the  biogra- 
pher, has  a  fondness  for  making  verses. 


biography  of  Dunstan.  Certainly  "B.  fsex 
Christicolarum "  recalls  vividly  enough  the 
"omnium  extimus  sacerdotum  B.  vilisque 
Saxonum  indigena "  of  the  prologue ;  nor  is 
it  likely  that  there  could  have  been  in  Eng- 
land at  one  time  two  wandering  scholars, 
whose  affairs  would  so  perfectly  accord  with 
what  we  learn  about  the  author  of  the  Vita. 
The  pun  in  the  third  letter  is  difficult  to 
interpret.  "  What  name  is  indicated  by  the 
initial  B.  can  only  be  conjectured,"  says 
Stubbs ;  "  it  may  have  been  the  common  Saxon 
Bruno;  or  some  name  to  which  the  Latin 
'  Bellus '  might  be  supposed  to  answer,  one  of 
the  many  names  that  begin  with  Bert,  or  it 
may  have  been  Benedict  or  even  Beda." 13 
Something  more  precise  than  this  may  be 
attempted.  The  name  may  have  been  Berht 
(Beorht) ;  which  is  of  common  occurrence;  or, 
not  impossibly,  it  may  have  been  Berhtram,1* 
which  would  account  for  both  "  bellus "  and 
"  misellus."  I  must  leave  the  matter  so,  and 
pass  to  the  more  important  question  of  this 
Saxon  B.'s  continental  relations. 

What  we  learn  of  them  seems  at  once  to 
justify  the  identification  of  the  letter-writer 
with  the  biographer  and  to  make  it  very  likely 
that  B.  would  bring  a  Saxon  poem  with  him 
to  England.  The  Bishop  of  Liege  mentioned 
in  the  first  letter  could  be  no  one,  as  Stubbs 
showed,15  save  Evraclus 16  (Ebrachar,  Ever- 

13  P.  xxvi. 

14  This  second  conjecture  depends  on  the  possibility 
that   B.    etymologized   Berhtram   as   Berht    (beorht) 
+  arm   ( earm ) .    The  form  Baerhtram  appears  in  a 
tenth    century    document    from    Kent,     printed    in 
Birch,    Cartularium    Saxonicum,    no.    1010,    and    in 
Kemble,    Codex    Diplomaticus,    no.    477.      Professor 
Frederick  Tupper  reminds  me  "that  we  often  have 
in  such  eases  the  Latin  synonym  of  only  one  member 
of  a  compound  name,"   which  makes  my  first  con- 
jecture   plausible.     Lupus   for   Wulfstan   is   a   well- 
known    instance,    and    Boniface's    Caritas    for    the 
Abbess    Leobgyth    is    of    the    same    character     (see 
Tupper,  The  Riddles  of  the  Exeter  Book,  p.  xlv). 

"P.  xxv. 

"For  the  career  of  Evraclus,  see  the  account  by 
Anselm,  Gesta  pontificum  Leodiensis,  cap.  24,  ed. 
Koepke,  M.H.a.  SS.  vn,  201-202;  Reinerus,  Vita 
Evracli  Leodiensium  memorabilis  episcopi,  ed.  Pez, 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


131 


aclus,  Evracrus),  who  held  the  see  between 
959  and  971.  Evraclus  was  one  of  the  extra- 
ordinary men  of  the  tenth  century.  He  was 
a  Saxon,  studied  first  at  Cologne,  and  was  later 
a  pupil  of  the  unfortunate  Ratherius,  either 
at  Liege  or  in  Germany.  .While  still  a  young 
man,  he  was  made  provost  of  Bonn;  and  he 
was  elevated  to  the  bishopric  of  Liege  at  the 
instance  of  the  Emperor  Otho  I  and  his 
brother  Bruno,  Archbishop  of  Cologne.  During 
his  occupancy  of  the  see  he  did  much  to  raise 
its  ecclesiastical  and  educational  renown:  he 
founded  three  monasteries,  and  in  one  of  them, 
St.  Martin's,  he  established  a  school  that  soon 
came  to  rival  Alcuin's  at  St.  Martin's  of 
Tours.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  wide 
and  independent  learning,  for  in  969  through 
his  knowledge  of  astronomy  he  saved  the  Ger- 
man army  from  panic  at  a  total  eclipse  of 
the  sun ;  and  he  encouraged  letters  by  arranging 
courses  of  study  in  monasteries  throughout  his 
diocese,  as  well  as  by  bringing  in,  often  at 
his  own  expense,  clerks  from  abroad  as  teachers. 
From  his  youth  he  was  devoted  to  St.  Martin, 
through  whose  relics  he  is  said  to  have  been 
cured  of  lupus,  and  to  him  he  dedicated  his 
chief  monastery.  His  last  days  were  clouded 
by  uprisings,  of  which  the  cause  is  unknown. 
However,  his  palace  was  raided  by  his  enemies, 
and  his  career  ended  in  disorder. 

The  evidence,  as  it  stands,  makes  it  clear 
that  B.,  the  -  letter- writer,  did  not  exaggerate 
in  referring  to  Liege  under  Evraclus  as  the 
Court  of  Wisdom.  B.,  the  Saxon  biographer 
of  Dunstan,  is  unlikely  to  have  received  his 

Thesaurus  Anecdotarum,  iv,  3,  153-166,  Migne,  Pa- 
trologicB  Curs.  Comp.  Lot.  cciv,  117-124,  W.  Arndt, 
M.G.H.  88.  xx,  561-565;  F.  Cramer,  Oeschichte  der 
Ergiehuiig  und  des  Unterrichts  in  den  Niederlanden 
ivahrend  des  Hittclalters,  1843,  pp.  91-94;  A.  Le  Roy 
in  Biograph:e  nationale  de  Belgique  vi,  616-620; 
Gallia  Christiana  in  Migne,  Patrologice  Curs.  Comp. 
Lot.  cxxxv,  943-946;  Histoire  lift,  de  la  France  vr, 
335;  and  S.  Balau,  Etude  critique  des  sources  de 
I'histoire  du  pays  de  Licr/c  nu  moyen  age  (Mc»i. 
couronne's  et  mem.  des  savants  Strangers,  Acad. 
Royale  de  Belgique,  1902-03),  pp.  101-102.  None 
of  the  modern  writers,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  adds 
anything  to  what  can  be  learned  from  Anselm  and 
Jiaynior  (Reinorus). 


1  raining  elsewhere  than  under  the  Saxon  bishop 
of  the  Belgian  city,  who  made  his  schools 
during  the  sixties  of  the  tenth  century  a 
gathering  point  for  all  the  learners  and  learned 
of  a  wide  region.  Evraclus,  it  will  be  noted, 
was  particularly  devoted  to  St.  Martin;  and 
the  biographer  B.  seems  to  have  held  that  saint 
in  special  honor,  for  he  mentions  him  with 
the  greatest  reverence  and,  after  the  fashion 
of  hagiographers,  chooses  him  for  comparison 
with  Dunstan.  As  far  as  circumstantial  evi- 
dence can  go,  the  identification  of  the  letter- 
writer  and  the  biographer  is  complete. 

Furthermore,  I  submit  that  no  man  could 
be  found  more  likely  to  have  carried  an  Old 
Saxon  poem  into  England  that  this  same  B. 
Himself  a  Saxon,  he  was  trained,  or  at  any 
rate  was  patronized,  by  a  Saxon  bishop  of 
the  widest  intellectual  interests,  a  man  who 
encouraged  learning  in  all  its  branches  and 
must  have  been,  in  the  nature  of  tilings,  a 
collector  of  manuscripts.  He  was  exiled  by 
the  death  of  his  master,  and  went  to  England 
to  find  new  episcopal  patrons.  In  England 
he  was,  once  at  least,  employed  in  connection 
with  a  manuscript,  which  implies  a  certain 
knowledge  of  such  things  as  well  as  an  imprest 
in  them.  Evraclus,  we  saw,  died  in  a  time 
of  disorder  and  most  probably  left  his  affairs 
in  confusion.  It  would  have  been  easy  for  the 
poor  scholar  B.,  even  if  he  had  not  previously 
been  so  rich  in  books  as  Chaucer's  Oxford  clerk, 
to  put  two  or  three  manuscripts  in  his  wallet 
before  he  fled  into  exile.  If  the  palace  was 
looted,  as  well  as  raided,  he  might  properly 
have  taken  such  treasures  as  were  precious  to 
him  personally  in  order  to  save  them  from 
his  patron's  enemies.  He  must  have  been,  we 
are  justified  in  believing  both  from  his  na- 
tionality and  his  references  to  Evraclus,  of 
the  Bishop's  immediate  circle;  and  he  would, 
accordingly,  have  had  ready  access  to  the  palace, 
whether  or  not  he  lived  there.  I  have  no  wish 
to  romance  about  B. :  the  outline  of  his  story 
is  circumstantially  complete.  T  feel  no  cer- 
tainty that  he  brought  the  Old  Saxon  Genesis 
to  England,  because  circumstantial  evidence 
cannot  give  absolute  proof;  but  I  think  it  very 
probable  that  he  did  so.  Whether  or  not  he 


132 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


translated  the  poem  himself  after  learning 
English  I  do  not  see  that  we  have  any  means 
of  deciding. 

The  acceptance  of  my  conjecture  would  make 
the  date  of  Genesis  B.,  I  am  well  aware,  some 
twenty-five  years  later  than  the  year  hitherto 
accepted  as  its  terminus  ad  quern.  The  cus- 
tomary view  is  that  expressed  by  Professor 
Brandl  in  Paul's  Grundriss :17  "Da  die  alts. 
Dichtung  gleich  der  handschrift  '  noch  in  das 

9.  Jahrhundert '  zu  setzen  ist,  diirfen  wir  die 
Entstehung  des  ags.  Textes  schwerlich  vor  das 

10.  Jahrhundert    verlegen;    und    da    in    der 
erhaltenen    ags.     Handschrift   noch   zahlreiche 
ie    begegnen,    haben    wir    die    Mitte    des    10. 
Jahrhunderts  wohl  als  untere  Grenze  anzuneh- 
men."     At  first  sight  this  evidence  looks  con- 
vincing ;  but,  like  the  results  of  too  much  of  the 
phonological   investigation  of   Old  English,   it 
does  not  bear  close   scrutiny  because   it  fails 
to  take  into  account  all  the  factors  involved. 
I  do  not  need,  in  order  to  show  that  the  trans- 
lation of  the  Old  Saxon  Genesis  may  have  been 
made  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  tenth  century, 
to  present  a  complete  phonology  of  Genesis  B.i8 
I  shall  merely  call  attention  to   a  few  facts 
which  seem  to  me  to  render  invalid  the  argu- 
ment for  950   as  the  latest  possible   date   of 
the  translation. 

In  the  first  place,  the  levelling  processes  in 
late  W.S.,  affecting  short  i,  y,  and  ie  in  stressed 
syllables,  have  run  their  full  course  as  far 
as  Genesis  E.  is  concerned:  the  scribe  (or  the 
redactor,  if  you  please)  never  writes  ie.  The 
"  numerous  "  instances  of  the  use  of  ie,  which 
are  mentioned  as  proving  that  the  text  could 
not  have  been  written  after  about  950,  are  all 
cases  of  Ie.  Naturally,  long  sounds  were 
likely  to  preserve  distinctions  that  were  being 
lost  in  the  pronunciation  of  short  sounds;  a 
conservative  tendency  in  representing  them 
would  by  no  means  be  remarkable.  Yet,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  substitution  of  y  for  Ie 

"2te  Aufl.  n,  1090. 

18 1  wish  to  acknowledge,  with  my  thanks,  the 
use  that  I  have  made  of  an  unpublished  study  of 
the  vowels  in  Genesis  B.  by  my  colleague,  Professor 
J.  Duncan  Spaeth. 


customary  in  late  W.S.,  is  generally  the  rule 
with  the  scribe  of  Genesis  B.  I  find  that  he 
uses  ie  sixty-four  times.  Of  these  cases,  how- 
ever, forty-seven  are  instances  of  the  use  of 
the  form  Me  for  the  third  personal  pronoun, 
interchanging  with  heo.  That  we  might  expect 
to  find  liy  in  a  work  of  the  last  quarter  of 
the  tenth  century  I  do  not  deny;  yet  we  find 
hi  as  ^Elfric's  customary  form,  and  in  the 
Blickling  Homilies,  which  have  on  all  accounts 
to  be  dated  after  the  Benedictine  Eeform,  we 
note  hie,  as  well  as  hi,  heo,  and  hy.19  Evidently, 
the  Ie  in  this  word  is  of  little  value  in  de- 
termining the  age  of  a  text. 

The  other  seventeen  instances  of  Ie  in 
Genesis  B.  must  be  considered  more  in  detail. 
They  are  the  following:  fieman  349,  fien  413, 
wlitesclene  527,  oftlewdest  540,  slene  607,  fiet 
618,  sle  621,  $en)  627,  hlerran  633,  lewde  653, 
sclene  656,  nlede  697,  sclene  700,  oftlewde  714, 
lewde  774,  hlerde  797,  and  sclenost  821.  A 
glance  at  this  list  will  make  it  clear  that  only 
eleven  words  are  involved.  Of  these,  fien)  is 
not  an  O.E.  form  at  all,  but  O.S.,  as  Sievers 
showed  long  since.  The  ten  words  thus  left 
are  certainly  not  sufficiently  "  numerous "  to 
afford  weighty  evidence  that  the  scribe  wrote 
at  a  time  nearer  to  yEfred  than  to  ^Elfric, 
particularly  in  view  of  the  notes  that  I  shall 
add  as  to  their  use.  The  forms  fien  and  fiet 
are  of  uncertain  origin  20  and  of  doubtful  his- 
tory, fiet  is  found  in  the  Blickling  Homilies, 
moreover,  along  with  other  forms  of  the  word.21 
As  to  the  writing  of  sclene,  the  scribe  seems  to 
have  been  most  uncertain.  We  find  sclene 
three  times,  sclenost  once,  scynost  once,  scene 
twice,  scenran  once,  scenost  once,  sceone  once, 
and  sceonost  once.  The  Ie  occurs  in  the  forms 
of  lew  an  uniformly;  but  it  is  found  in  the 
Blickling  Homilies  also,  and  isolated.22  The 
form  hlerde  is  exceptional,  as  it  appears  once 
against  hyrde  nine  times. 

"See  A.  K.  Hardy,  Die  Sprache  der  Blickling 
Homilien,  §124.  It  matters  little  that  these  homilies 
were  of  Anglian  origin,  since  they  have  all  the 
earmarks  of  late  W.S. 

20  See  Sievers'  Ags.  Gram.,  note  to  §74. 

21  See   Hardy,    §32.  "See  Hardy,  §39. 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


133 


Thus  far  I  have  tried  to  show  merely  that 
the  scribe  of  Genesis  B.  is  a  somewhat  un- 
trustworthy guide,  and  that  the  supposedly 
numerous  instances  of  le  in  the  work  are,  in 
reality,  very  few.  I  wish  now  to  point  out 
another  significant  fact,  which  seems  to  have 
been  unnoticed.  The  use  of  ie  in  Genesis  B. 
must  certainly  be  due  to  the  scribe,  or  redactor, 
and  not  in  most  instances  to  the  translator, 
because  it  is  found  with  about  the  same  fre- 
quency in  Genesis  A.  In  a  number  of  lines 
equivalent  to  the  number  in  Genesis  B.  le 
occurs  nine  times,  aside  from  the  common  use 
of  hie.  Two  words  (fiel  and  sle)  from  the  list 
given  above  again  appear,  while  ie  is  nowhere 
found.  The  correspondence  shows,  clearly 
enough,  that  the  occasional  use  of  le  in  both 
poems  is  the  result  of  a  conservative  tendency 
on  the  part  either  of  the  copyist  or  of  the 
man  who  inserted  the  Old  Saxon  translation 
into  the  Old  English  poem.  Since  Exodus  and 
Daniel  do  not  show  the  same  looseness  in 
allowing  an  occasional  le  to  slip  in,  the  copyist 
of  the  Junian  MS.  itself  cannot  fairly  be  held 
responsible.23  On  the  other  hand,  since  an 
old  poem  like  Genesis  A.  shows  the  same  usage 
as  Genesis  B.,  while  another  old  poem  like 
Exodus  avoids  it,  no  valid  argument  can  be 
constructed  on  this  evidence  as  to  the  terminus 
ad  quern  of  the  translation.  The  use  of  le 
appears  to  be  merely  a  bit  of  scribal  conserva- 
tism.2* If  my  reasoning  is  justifiable,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  way  of  my  conjecture  that  an 
expatriate  Saxon  brought  the  original  of 
Genesis  B.  to  England  about  971;  at  least, 
there-  is  no  chronological  difficulty. 

Furthermore,  and  finally,  the  last  quarter  of 
the  tenth  century  is,  on  historical  grounds,  a 
far  more  probable  date  for  the  introduction 
and  translation  of  Genesis  than  the  first  half 
of  the  century.  The  revival  of  letters  under 
JElfred  soon  spent  its  force,  or  rather  was 

a  I  note  but  one  case  of  ie  in  Exodus,  save  for 
"hie,  which  is  frequently  used. 

u  A  similar  conservatism  is  shown  in  words  with 
ea  ( breaking  of  a )  before  i  +  cons.  Ea  is  prevalent, 
but  a  is  kept  in  aldor  (ruler),  aldre  (on,  to  aldre), 
alwalda,  and  waldend,  apparently  as  archaic  and 
consecrated  forms. 


destroyed  by  the  Scandinavian  invaders.  On 
the  unimpeachable  authority  of  ^Elfric  we  learn 
that  when  Dunstan  and  ^Ethelwold  started 
their  reform  "no  English  priest  could  write 
or  understand  a  letter  in  Latin."  26  Dunstan 
was  made  abbot  of  Glastonbury  in  946  or 
thereabouts,  and  ^Ethelwold  was  granted  the 
charter  of  Abingdon  about  954.  ^Elfric  further 
says,  speaking  of  his  reasons  for  composing 
his  own  homilies :  "  and  me  ofhreow  ]?set  hi  ne 
cuj?on  ne  nasfdon  J?a  godspellican  lare  on  heora 
gewritum,  buton  )?am  mannum  anum  Be  j?aet 
Leden  cuSon,  and  buton  J?am  bocum  fte  Alfred 
cyning  snoterlice  awende  of  Ledene  on  Englisc, 
)?a  synd  to  hasbbene."  2a  It  is  most  unlikely,  in 
these  circumstances,  that  the  Old  Saxon  poem 
would  have  been  brought  to  England,  or  trans- 
lated there,  during  the  half-century  of  intel- 
lectual dearth  which  followed  the  death  of 
JElfred.  But  in  spite  of  its  peculiarities  and 
possible  archaisms,  Genesis  B.  is  unmistakably 
post-JElfredian  in  its  language.  If  not  of 
Alfred's  time,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  it  would  have  been  neither  imported  nor 
translated  until  after  the  Benedictine  reform. 
Thus  again  it  seems  probable  that  the  Saxon 
priest  B.  brought  with  him  to  England  a  poem 
in  his  native  tongue. 


GORDON  HALL  GEROULD. 


Princeton  Univertity. 


DIE  DOPPELDRUCKE  VON  GOETHES 
WERKEN,   1806-1808 

Die  sogenannte  "Zweite  Auflage"  der  ersten 
Cottaschen  Ausgabe  der  Werke  ist  eingehend 
besprochen  wordeu  von  J.  T.  Hatfield  im  Journal 
of  Germanic  Philology,  Bd.  V.  S.  341-352,  wo 
auch  auf  die  friibere  Literatur  hingewiesen  wird. 
Es  handelt  sicli  bier  aber  keineswegs  um  eine 
"Zweite  Auflage,"  obwohl  dies  auch  Hirzel1  an- 

a  English  preface  to  his  Grammar,  ed.  Zupitza, 
p.  3. 

26  Sermones  Catholici,  ed.  Thorpe,   1,  2. 
lVerzeichniss  einer  Goethe-Bibliothek  (1884),  S.  65. 


134 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xx vi,  No.  6. 


niramt,  sondern  nur  urn  Doppeldrucke  eiuzelner, 
beira  Verleger  in  zwischen  vergrifFener  Biinde.  Die 
irrige  Anuahme  einer  "Zweiten  Auflage"  lasst 
sich  zuriickf 'iihreii  auf  eine  Anzeige  \mlntelligenz- 
Blatt  des  Journals  ties  Luxus  und  derModen  1809, 
No.  1,  wo  unter  den  zur  Michaelismesse  1808  im 
Cottaschen  Verlag  fertig  gewordenen  Werken  an- 
gefiihrt  wird  : 

"  Goethe  (von)  samratliche  Werke.  12 
Bde.  gr.  8.  2te  Auflage.  Weiss  Drckp. 
Subscr.  Pr.  2  Carolin.  ord.  Drckp.  Subscr. 
Pr.  1£  Carolin." 

Dazu  macht  August  Fresenius  in  der  Weimarer 
Ausgabe  Bd.  13"  S.  114  die  Bemerkung  :  "  Dar- 
nacli  hat  es  den  Anschein,  als  ob  von  alien  zwolf 
Banden  von  A  ein  zweiter  Druck  (A1)  existire." 
Dies  ist  jedoch  ganz  und  gar  nicht  der  Fall  :  viel- 
raehr  bezieht  sich  die  Anzeige  auf  die  erste  Cot- 
tasche  Ausgabe  (A),  da  die  Schriften  und  Neuen 
Schriften  zusammen  als  Erste  Auflage  betrachtet 
vvurden.  Der  heutige  Gegensatz  zwischen  den  als 
Schriften  uud  als  Werken  bezeichneten  Ausgaben 
existierte  damals  uberhaupt  noch  nicht,  denn  die 
Bogeunorm  der  Goschenschen  Schriften  ist  durch- 
weg  Goethe's  W.(erke'),  wahrend  sich  bei  den 
Ungerschen  Neuen  Schriften  die  Bogenuorm  v. 
Gb'the  Schriften  vorfindet.  Vor  dem  Erscheiuen 
der  Cottaschen  Ausgabe  gebraucht  Goethe  ge- 
wohnlich  den  Ausdruck  Schriften,  dann  werden 
Schriften  und  Werke  nebeneiuander  gebraucht, 
bis  schliesslich  der  letztere  Ausdruck  die  Ober- 
hand  behalt.  So  heisst  es  z.  B.  in  Goethes  Ent- 
wurf  des  Verlags-Kontrakts  vom  14.  Juni  1805 
(Briefe  Bd.  19.  S.  13,  13):  Unterzeichneter  hat 
die  Absicht,  seine  Schriften  neu  herauszugeben 
.  .  .  Dagegen  unterm  12.  August  (ib.  S.  42,  5): 
Der  Herr  Geheimerath  von  Goethe  hat  die  Ab- 
sicht, seine  samratlichen  Werke  in  zwolf  Banden 
.  .  .  Ahnlich  schreibt  Goethe  am  18.  August  1806 
(ib.  175,  19) :  Mit  der  fahrenden  Post  geht  der 
vierte  Band  meiner  Werke  an  Sie  ab.  Dagegen 
heisst  es  spater  wieder  im  Tagebuche  (Bd.  3.  S. 
198)  13.  Marz  1807  :  Den  9.  Bd.  meiner  Schriften 
eingesiegelt.  Drei  Tage  spater  wird  sogar  der  Emp- 
fang  der  ersten  vier  Biinde  mit  den  Worten  ange- 
merkt :  (ib.  S.  199)  Kain  die  erste  Lieferung 
meiner  Schriften  von  Tiibiugen  an.  Am  9.  Juni 
1807  (Briefe  Bd.  19,  S.  345,  8)  wiinscht  Goethe 


die  vier  Bande  seiner  Werke,  dagegen  schreibt  er 
unterm  1.  Nov.  (ib.  S.  446,  20):  Der  Band  von 
meineu  Schriften,  mit  dem  ich  noch  im  Rest  bin. 
Noch  im  Jahre  1821,  in  den  Anmerkungen  u'ber 
die  Harzreise  im  Winter  ( W  331,  333,  6.  7. ) 
wird  der  beiden  Cottaschen  Ausgaben  AB  unter 
den  Worten  der  wrletzten,  und  der  letzten  Aus- 
gabe gedacht,  ein  deutlicher  Beweis,  dass  Goethe 
die  Schriften  noch  immer  mitrechnete,  trotz  des 
verschiedenen  Titels.  Uberhaupt  hat  Goethe  von 
den  Neudrucken  hochstwahrscheinlich  nie  ge- 
wusst,  denn  laut  Kontrakt  hatte  der  Verleger 
nicht  nur  das  Recht,  eine  beliebige  Anzahl  von 
Exemplaren  zu  drucken,  sondern  er  durfte  sogar 
auch  andere  Formen  wahlen,  z.  B.  die  einer 
Taschenausgabe.  (Vgl.  Briefe  Bd.  19,  S.  42-44). 
Dagegen  durfte  er  die  uach  Belieben  gedruckten 
Auflagen  oder  Exemplare  nur  innerhalb  der  fest- 
gesetzten  Termine  Ostern  1806  bis  Ostern  1814 
verkaufen,  denn  auf  die  von  Cotta  vorgeschlagene 
Klausel  : 

"5.  Bis  zum  Absatz  der  ersten  Auflage 
findet  keine  neue  Statt,  falls  dieser  auch 
langer  als  sechs 2  Jahre  erforderte," 

antwortete  Goethe  : 

"Diese  Bedingung  ist,  wie  die  Schrift 
zeigt,  spater  eingeschrieben  und  Sie  haben  in 
der  Eile  der  Expedition  wohl  nicht  gedacht 
dasz  dieselbe  den  ersten  Punckt  gleichsam 
aufhebt.  Damit  sich  der  Autor  nicht  um 
die  Starcke  der  Auflage,  nicht  um  die  Weise 
zu  bekummern  brauche  wie  der  Verleger  die 
Wercke  in's  Publicum  bringt,  ist  dort  eine 
Zeit  festgesetzt  welche  alien  Mishelligkeiten 
vorbeugt.  Durch  No.  5  aber  wu'rde  der  Ter- 
rniii  aufgehoben,  wodurch  nianche  Weiterung 
entspringen  konnte," 

Hierin  liegt  auch  die  eigentliche  Ursache  fur 
das  Veranstalten  der  Doppeldrucke.  Wenn  ihm 
der  5.  Punkt  bewilligt  worden  ware,  so  hatte 
Cotta  gleich  zweimal  soviel  Exemplare  gedruckt, 
als  ihm  sonst  notig  geschienen,  denn  er  hatte  sie 
ja  auch  nach  Ablauf  des  Termines  verkaufen  kon- 
nen.  So  aber  war  dies  unmoglich,  und  etwaige 

2  Nachtriiglich  verlangerte  Goethe  den  Terrain  auf  acht 
Jahre. 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


135 


unverkaufte  Exemplare  wiiren  einfach  Makulatur 
gewesen.  Also  machte  er  die  Auflagc  verbal  t- 
nismiissig  klein. 

Das  Manuscript des 2.  und  3.  Bandes  wurde  am 
30.  Sept.  1805  an  Cotta  abgeschickt,  der  erste 
Band  am  24.  Feb.  1806,  der  vierte  Band  am  18. 
August  desselben  Jahres,  abgesehen  voin  Elpenor, 
der  erst  am  8.  Dec.  abgefertigt  wurde.  Zweifellos 
wurden  also  der  zweite  und  dritte  Band  vor  dem 
vierten  gedruckt,  da  Goethes  Exemplare  der  ersten 
vier  Bande  schon  am  16.  Marz  1807  in  Weimar 
ankamen.  Da  nun,  wie  wir  sehen  werden,  vom 
1.  uiid  4.  Bande  je  drei  verschiedene  Drucke  vor- 
liegen,  so  ist  es  hochst  wahrscheinlich,  dass  auch 
vom  2.  und  3.  Bande  dieselbe  Anzahl  existiert, 
obschon  bisher  nur  zwei  bekannt  sind.  Man  darf 
annehmen,  dass  Cotta,  zu  einer  Zeit  wo  der  1.  u. 
4.  bez.  1.  bis  4.  Band  schon  gedruckt  waren,  etwa 
nach  der  Ostermesse  1807,  der  starkeren  Nachfrage 
wegen  sich  entschlossen  hatte  die  Auflage  zu  ver- 
grossern.  Die  schon  gedruckten  Bande  mussten 
neu  gesetzt  werden,  bei  den  folgenden  konnten 
naturlich  von  demselben  Satze  gleich  einige  tau- 
send  Exemplare  mehr  abgezogen  werden. 

Vom  5.  6.  7.  u.  9.  Bande  liegen  je  zwei 
Drucke  vor,  dagegen  beruhen  die  Abweichungen 
im  10.  u.  11.  Bande  lediglich  auf  Presskorrek- 
turen,  was  Hatfield  nicht  erkannt  hat.  Vom  9. 
Bande  sind  nur  die  Bogen  1-4  neugesetzt,  wah- 
rend  die  Bogen  5-28  in  alien  rnir  zuganglichen 
Exemplaren  identisch  sind.  Vom  8.  Bande 
scheiuen  keine  Doppeldrucke  zu  existireu.  Zur 
Zeit  also,  als  Bogen  1-4  des  9.  Bandes,  sowie  die 
Bande  1-7  schon  gedruckt  waren,  beschloss  Cotta 
eine  nochmalige  Verstarkung  der  Auflage  :  bei 
den  noch  nicht  gedruckten  Biinden,  bez.  Bogen, 
wurde  die  grossere  Anzahl  Exemplare  vom  ersten 
d.  h.  einzigen  Satze  abgezogen,  bei  den  Banden 
1-7  sowie  den  4  Bogen  des  9.  Baudes  musste  der 
Text  neu  gesetzt  werden.  Dabei  wurde  nicht 
nur  der  Titel  des  7.  Bandes  verdruckt,  wie  Hat- 
field  angibt,  (Datum  1807  anstatt  1808)  sondern 
auch  der  des  6.  Baudes  :  1808  anstatt  1807.  Die 
Daten  der  beiden  Titel  wurden  einfach  verwech- 
selt  :  Band  6  von  A  tragt  also  das  Datum  1807, 
wahrend  A1  das  Datum  1808  aufweist ;  dagegen 
triigt  der  7.  Band  von  A  die  Jahreszahl  1808,  A1 
jedoch  das  fru'here  Datum  1807.  Es  ist  nicht 
wahrscheinlich,  dass  sich  Doppeldrucke  der  Bande 


10-12  vorfinden  werden.  Bei  den  Neuen  Schrif- 
ten liegt  mimlich  ein  ahnlicher  Sachverhalt  vor  : 
vom  1.  Bande  liegen  fu'nf  Drucke  vor,  vom  2. -5. 
Bande  je  drei,  vom  sechsten  zwei,  vom  7.  Bande 
nur  ein  einziger. 

Uber  den  textkritischen  Wert  dieser  Doppel- 
drucke gilt  genau  dasselbe  wie  bei  den  Neuen 
Schriften  :  der  erste,  echte  Druck  hat  den  richti- 
gen  Text,  die  Nachdrucke  verschlirambessern 
nur,  wenn  auch  hie  und  da  ein  auffallender 
Druckfehler  mit  beseitigt  wird.  Da  ich  den 
textgeschichtlicheu  Einfluss  dieser  Doppeldrucke 
an  anderer  Stelle  ausfuhrlich  zu  erortern  gedenke, 
wird  hier  von  der  Angabe  von  Einzelheiten  abge- 
sehen. Nur  ist  zu  bemerken,  dass  Hatfield  den 
Sachbestand  ganzlich  verkennt,  wenn  er  annimmt, 
"  dass  man  (vermutlich  in  Cottas  Offizin)  zu  den 
alteren  Lesarten  in  S  und  sonstigen  fru'heren  Quel- 
len  zuriickkorrigierte. "  Das  tut  der  Nachdrucker 
nie — beim  ersten  Bande  hat  Hatfield  einfach  A 
und  A1  verwechselt,  oder  vielmehr  A1  und  A*, 
denn  der  echte  Druck  A  war  ihm  uubekannt. 

In  der  folgeuden  UbersicLt  werden  fu'rjeden 
Band  acht  bis  zehu  der  wichtigsten  Varianten 
geboten — dabei  werden  die  bekanuten  Siglen 
gebraucht,  und  zwar  bedeutet 

S  :  Goethe's     Schriften.      Leipzig,     1787- 

1790.  8  Bande. 

S1  :  Goethe's    Schriften.       Leipzig,    1787- 

1791.  4  Bande. 

N  :  Goethe's  neue  Schriften.    Berlin,  1792- 

1800.     7  Bande. 
A  :  Goethe's    Werke.       Tubingen,     1806- 

1808.     12  Bande. 
B  :  Goethe's     Werke.     Stuttgart,      1815- 

1819.     20  Bande. 
B1  :  Goethe's   Werke.     Wien,    1816-1822. 

26  Bande. 
C1  :  Goethe's    Werke.        Stuttgart,     1827- 

1830.  kl.  8°.     40  Bande. 
C   :  Dieselbe  Ausg.  in  8°. 
N*,  A1,  A2,  B1  :   Doppeldrucke  der   betref- 

fenden  Ausgabeu. 


H  :  Handschriften 
E,  J  :  Einzeldrucke 


im  App.  der  Wei- 
marer  Ausgabe 
(W)  beschrieben. 


ERSTER  BAND.— 35,    1    (W   Bd.    1,    S.    62, 


136 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Fo/.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


Uberschrift) :  Die  Freuden  SAA1,  Die  Freude 
A'B.  65,  23  (W  1,  115,  71):  Er  gleichet 
AW,  Es  gleichet  A1A2-C.  131,  6  {  W  2,  74,  5) : 
sturzt  herab  H4JSA,  stiirzt  hinab  A'A^CW. 
211,  27  (W  2.  26,  82):  Myrthenhaine  JAA1, 
Morgenhaine  A2-CW.  342,  18  (W  1,  291, 
46) :  gereiht  AC'CW,  gereizt  AWBB1.  344,  3 
(W  1,  293,  2):  Martial  sich  zu  mir  AB'C'O, 
Martial  zu  mir  A^BB1.  399,  5  (W  1,  307, 
5):  Bymbelntrornmeln  A,  Cymbelntroinmeln  A1, 
Cymbeln,  Trommeln  A2-CW.3  388,  12  (W  1, 
338,  64):  als  ein  Vollendetes  NA,  an  ein  Vollen- 
detes  A'A'-CW. 

ZWEYTER  BAND.— 100,  22  (W  Bd.  21,  100, 
25):  ftihlen  NAB,  fuhlten  A1.  100,  26  (W 
101,  1):  in  meinen  Herzen  ABC1,  in  meinem 
Herzen  A'B'CW.  132,  15  (W  182,  20) :  sol- 
len  Sie  N'A,  sollen  sie  NAJB.  134,  5  (W  134, 
10) :  Schmerzens  NABB1,  Schmerzes  WA\  280, 
16  (W  280,  19) :  zerstreuen  NAB,  erstreuen  A1. 
293,  6  (W  293,  7):  spiihren  NA,  spuren  A1. 
332,  8  (W22,  6,  8):  ihren  N'ABB'C^C,  Ihren 
NAJW.  425,  14  (W  98,  14) :  icli  war  NAB, 
war  ich  A1. 

DRITTER  BAND.— 64,  5  (W  Bd.  22,  196,  4): 
Philine  ABC'CW,  Philinen  NA'B1.  117,  3 
(W  248,  28) :  halte  NA,  hatte  A1.  205,  27 
(W  338,  23):  in  der  Gesellschaft  NA,  in  die  Ge- 
sellschaft  A^CW.  309,  19  (W  23,  82,  16): 
ohngefahr  HNAB1,  ungefahr  A^C'CW.  319, 
15  (W  92,  12):  verblaszt  NAB,  erblaszt  A1. 
374,  17  (W  147,  19):  der  arme  Mignon 
NABB'C1,  die  arme  Miguou  A'CW.  398,  27 
(W  171,  22):  entferntern  NAB,  enfernten  A1. 
"  VIERTER  BAND.— 19,  12  (W  Bd.  9,  20, 
250):  schon  jetzt  HA,  jetzt  schon  A^A'-CW. 
38,  6  (W  40,  6) :  Keller  SAA1,  Kellner  A2-CW 
(so  auch  47,  28  ;  48,  3  ;  48,  8).  57,  23  (W 
60,  320):  Da  ist  HSAA1,  Das  ist  A2B.  163, 
18  (W  299,  534) :  State  EA,  Statte  A1  A2.  164, 
29  (W  301,  564):  strenge  A,  strengen  A1  A2. 
207,  12  (W243,  1463):  Palmire  find  A,  Pal- 
mire  find'  A1,  Palmiren  find'  A2B.  251,  6  (W 
387,  592):  ins  Geheim  EAA1,  ingeheim  A2-C. 
282,  5  (W  418,  1242):  Vertrauen voile  EA,  Ver- 
trauensvolle  A'A'-CW.  332,  6  (W  11,  18, 
343):  von  Herzen  A,  vom  Herzen  A^'-CW. 
344,  16  (W  30,  670):  Arme  AA2,  Aerme  A1. 

8  Vgl.  Borstnblalt  f.  d.  deutschen  Buchhandd,  1911,  No. 
53,  S.  2760. 


FUNFTER  BAND. -6,  19  (W  Bd.  8,  6,  18): 
Strich  SA,  Streich  AJB  37,  2  (W  36,  20): 
auch  wohl  SA,  wohl  auch  AJ-C.  41,  5  (W  40, 
24) :  der  letztere  SA,  der  letzte  A^CW.  69, 

11  (W  69,  21):  Berlichingens  ESA,   Berlichin- 
gen  A'-CW.        77,  20  (W  78,  1):  gespiirt  SA, 
gehort  A'-CW.       123,  7  (W  124,  12) :  gewiesen 
ESA,  bewiesen  AT-CW.       135,  8  (W  136,  15) : 
ich  geth an  habe,  SA,  ich  gethan,  A^CW.      182, 
13  (W  184,   11):   Sinuen  SA,   Sinne  AMJW. 
295,   1   (W  294,  23):  auf  einen  Helm  SA,  auf 
einem  Helm  A'-CW.       373,  15.  16  (W.  Bd.  11, 
190,    16) :   aus   ihren  Handen   wieder   SA,   aus 
ihren  wieder  A'-CW,       374,  26  (W  416,  9):  an 
seiuemHalse).   A,   an   seinem  Halse  hangend). 
A'-CW. 

SECHSTER  BAND.— 27,  3  (W  Bd.  10,  27, 
583) :  traufend  HSA,  traufelnd  A'-CW.  152, 
20  (W  160,  1383)  :  Der  Rache  SAB,  Die  Rache 
A'B1.  203,  28  (W  212,  2633)  frommen  SAW, 
frohen  AJ-C.  266,  22  (W  275,  621):  steile 
Fels  EAW,  stille  Fels  A'-C.  279,  12  (W  289, 
921)  :  Von  alien  EAW,  Vor  alien  AMI  306, 

12  (W317,  1505):  Lasz  mich's  verheelen  EA, 
Lasz  mich  verheelen  A^CW. 

SIEBENTER  BAND.  —2,  5.  6  (W  Bd.  11,  198, 
6) :  Pedro  von  Rovero  SA,  Pedro  von  Rovera 
A'-C,  von  Rovero  W  (Druckfehler).  114,  11 
(W  312,  550):  siiszten  HSA,  siiszen  AJ-CW. 
181,  20  (W  12,  51,  23) :  seinen  Anfang  SAW, 
ihren  Anfang  AMI  1 81,  22  ( W  51,  25) :  ver- 
graben  SA,  begraben  A'-CW.  190,  12  (W60, 
12) :  gefahrlichste  SA,  gefahrliche  A'-CW.  243, 
3  (W  112,  6):  ilm,  er  geht  EJA,  ihn,  und  er 
geht  A^CW.  265,  10  (W  135,  358):  hier 
SAB1,  hie^BC'CW.  322,  19  (W  190,  161): 
laszTA,  lasztA^CW. 

NEUNTER  BAND.— 8,   15   (W  Bd.    17,  124, 
12) :  der  Hand  NA,  der  Hand  A^CW.       20, 

19  (W  136,  11):  zuforderst  NA,  zuvorderst  A1. 
28,   7  (W  144,  7):  Gelingt  mir  NAW,  Gelingt 
nur  A'-C.        38,  25  (W  154,  26):  ihn  noch  im- 
mer  NAW,  ihn  immer  AJ-C.        44,  5  (W  160. 
3):  und  eilte  NA,  und  ich  eilte  A^CW.       45, 

20  (W  161,  17):  wo  ich  NA,  wie  ich  A^CW. 
51,  27  (W  167,  22)  liebste  Xante  NAW,  Hebe 
Xante  A^C.      63,   24  (W  180,  5):   ceue,  Ihr 
NA,  neue.    Ihr  Aa-CW. 

ZEHNTERBAND. — HierliegtkeinneuerSatzvor, 
die  Abweichungen,  welche  sich  samtlich  auf  dem 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


137 


ersten  Bogen  vorfinden,  beruhen  auf  Presskor- 
rekturen.  Im  Gegensatz  zu  den  vorhergehenden 
Banden  ist  daher  bier  der  korrektere  Druck  der 
spiitere. 

7,  14  (W  Bd.  50,  7,  62):  gewiinn  er  A,  ge- 
w"nn'  er  NA'B.  7,  29  ( W  7,  77)  :  steht  er  A, 
stebt  er  !  A'B.  10,  12  ( W  9,  140)  :  vertheid- 
gen  A,  vertheid'geii  NA'B.  11,  1  (W  10, 
159):  sollt  er  NAB,  sollt'er  A1.  11,  28  (W 
11,  184):  Kratzfusz  AB,  Kratzefusz  NA1.  14, 
6  (W  13,  247):  Seht  bier  AB.  Sebt,  bier  NA1. 

14,  10   (W  13,  251)  Vernehmet  trauriger  A, 
Vernebmet,  trauriger  NA'B.         14,  20  (W  13, 
261):  war  .  .  .  gelegt  AB,  ward  .  .  .  gelegtNA1. 

15,  10  (14,  277):  es  euer  AB,  es,  euer  NA. 
EILPTER  BAND. — Aucb  bier  liegt  kein  neuer 

Satz  vor,  sondern  nur  Presskorrektur  :  obscbon 
Hatfield  eiiieti  Unterscbied  sehen  will  zwischen 
den  von  ihm  bemerkteu  Lesarten  uud  den  "  klei- 
nen  Varianteu  "  die  Seuffert  (AY  19,  S  345)  an- 
f  iihrt,  so  sind  dieselben  doch  alle  derselben  Art. 
Da  nun  diese  Varianten  auf  drei  Bogen  verteilt 
sind — eventuell  finden  sich  nocb  mehr — so  sind 
acbt  Kombinationen  der  betreffenden  Bogen  mog- 
licb  :  abc,  abc1,  ab!c,  ab'c1,  a'bV,  a'b1^  a'bc1, 
a'bc.  In  den  sechs  mir  augenblicklich  vorliegen- 
den  Exemplaren  finden  sich  vier  dieser  Gruppen 
vertreten.  Im  folgenden  Verzeichnis  der  bis  jetzt 
bekannt  gewordenen  Varianten  bezeicbnet  also  A 
die  unkorrigierte,  A1  die  korrigierte  Lesart.  Letz- 
tere  stimrat  iiberall  mit  der  Vorlage  S1  iiberein, 
abgesehen  von  der  Stelle  106,  10,  wo  diese  schon 
den  Druckfebler  enthiilt,  den  der  Cottascbe  Kor- 
rektor  beseitigt  : 

26,  11  (WBd.  19,  25,  23):  Gesellschafterin 
A,  Gesellschafterin n  S'A1.  43,  21  (W  43,  1): 
Pfarrerin  A,  Pfarrerinn  S'A1.  47,  26  (W  46, 
27) :  treflicbe  A,  trefiiiche  S'A1.  98,  6  ( W  96, 
3) :  anderu  A,  anderen  Si  A1.  98,  9  (W  96,  3) : 
24.  Januar  A,  20.  Januar  S'A1.  106,  4  (W 
103,  24) :  nur  A,  Nur  S'A1.  106,  10  (W  104, 
3) :  dem  Uebermutbigen  S^,  den  Uebermiithi- 
gen  SA1.  107,  20  ( W  105,  14) :  was  vor  Au- 
gen  A,  was  fur  Augen  S'A1. 

ZwdLFTER  BAND.  —  Nur  die  Musikbeilage 
scheint  zweimal  gedruckt  zu  sein  :  in  zwei 
Exemplaren,  die  bauptsachlich  aus  den  Biiuden 
der  A-Reihe  bestehen,  tragt  die  Beilage  keine 
Seitenzahl ;  auf  der  Riickseite  finden  sich  die  bei- 


den  Druckfehler  pazieza  und  Franbia.  Dagegen 
triigt  die  Beilage  in  zwei  Exemplaren,  die  vor- 
wiegend  aus  Banden  der  A'-Reihe  bestehen,  keine 
Seitenzahl.  Auch  liest  man  bier  richtig  pazienza 
uud  Francia.  Hochstwahrscheinlich  wird  in  an- 
deren Exemplareu  das  Umgekebrte  der  Fall  sein. 

Schliesslich  sei  noch  bemerkt,  dass  viele  Exem- 
plare  nicht  durchweg  aus  Banden  der  A-  bez.  A1- 
Reihe  besteben,  soudern  gemiscbt  sind.  Das  liegt 
auch  ganz  in  der  Natur  der  Sacbe  :  der  Verleger 
Hess  namlicb  keine  neue  Auflage  drucken,  sondern 
erganzte  nur  seinen  Bedarf  an  den  friiber  gedruck- 
ten  und  bereits  teilweise  abgesetzten  Banden.  Die 
Nachschiisse  liess  er  dann  zu  den  friiber  gedruck- 
ten  Exemplaren  tun,  denen  sie  ja  durchaus  ahn- 
lich  sahen.  Als  dann  schliesslich  die  vollstandi- 
gen  Exemplare  zusammengestellt  und  verkauft 
wurden,  gescbah  es  ja  leicht,  dass  A  und  A1  ver- 
miscbt  wurden.  Die  A'-Bande  finden  sich  nicht 
so  haufig  zusammen  als  die  A-Bande :  so  besteht 
z.  B.  ein  Exemplar  aus  den  A-Banden  1-3,  Band 
4  gebort  zur  Gattung  A2,  Band  5,  6,  7,  9  zur  Gat- 
tung  A1.  Ahnlich  bestand  das  von  Goethe  als 
Vorlage  zu  B  benutzte  Exemplar  aus  Band  1  u.  4 
der  Gattung  A2,  Baud  2  u.  3  gehorten  zum  Origi- 
naldruck  A,  Band  5,  6,  7,  9  zum  Nacbdruck  A1. 
Bei  den  iibrigen  Banden,  wie  wir  schon  gesehen, 
liegt  nur  einmaliger  Satz  vor.  Dagegen  enthielt 
das  Exemplar,  nach  welchem  Goethe  im  Jahre 
1809  die  Druckfehler  verzeichnete,  *  Band  3  der 
Gattung  A1,  und  Band  6  der  Gattung  A — ein 
deutlicher  Beweis  dass  Goethe  uichts  von  einer 
' '  Zweiten  Auflage  ' '  wusste. 


Johns  Hopkins  University. 


W.    KURRELMEYER. 


THE  SONNET  "DANTE  ALIGHIERI 

SON  .  .  ." 

In  1901  Manicardi  and  Mass£ra,  in  their  Intro- 
duzione  al  testo  critico  del  Canzoniere  di  Giovanni 
Boccacci,1  showed  that  the  traditional  attribution 
to  Boccaccio  of  the  fine  sonnet  beginning 

4  Tayebiicher,  Bd.  4,  S.  374. 

1  L.  Manicardi  and  A.  F.  Mass£ra,  Introduzione  al  testo 
critico  del  Canzoniere  di  Giovanni  Boccacci,  Castelfiorentino, 
1901,  p.  13,  n.  2,  and  p.  23. 


138 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


"Dante  Alighieri  son,  Minerva  oscura," 

was  quite  unwarranted.  Their  statement,  very 
brief,  and  insignificantly  placed,  has  not  checked 
the  tradition  :  the  sonnet  is  ascribed  without  ques- 
tion to  Boccaccio  in  Gigli's  Antologia  delle  opere 
minori  volgari  di  Giovanni  Boccaccio  (1907),  in 
Carducci's  Primavera  e  fiore  della  lirica  italiana 
(1903),  in  D'Ancona  and  Bacci's  Manuale  della 
letter  atura  italiana  (1904),  in  the  admirable  Ox- 
ford Book  of  Italian  Verse  (1910),  and  in  some 
other  recent  books.  Furthermore,  the  current 
version  of  the  sonnet  contains  spurious  elements 
which  render  it  inferior  to  the  original  version.  A 
new  treatment  of  the  matter  seems  therefore  to 
be  in  order. 

The  sonnet  is  not  known  to  exist  in  manuscript.2 
It  was  first  printed  on  the  recto  of  the  last  leaf 
of  the  Venice  1477  edition  of  the  Divine  Comedy, 
as  follows  : — 

D  anti  alighieri  son  minerua  oscura 

dintelligentia  e  darte  nel  cui  ingegno 

lelegantia  materna  agionse  alsegno 

che  si  tien  che  miracol  de  natura 
L  alta  raia  fantasia  prompta  e  sicura 

passo  iltartareo  e  poi  il  celeste  regno 

el  nobil  mio  volume  feci  degno 

di  temporale  e  spiritual  lectura 
F  iorenza  magna  terra  hebbi  per  madre 

anzi  matregna  :  et  io  piatoso  figlio 

gratia  di  lingue  scelerate  e  ladre 
B  auenna  fu  mio  albergho  nel  mio  exiglio 

et  ella  ha  il  corpo  :  lalma  ha  il  sommo  padre 

presso  acui  invidia  non  vince  consiglio  3 

Above  it>  on  the  page,  is  the  end  of  the  Credo 
di  Dante,  the  only  intervening  sign  being  the 
AMEN  which  serves  as  finis  to  that  piece  ;  below 
it  stands  the  word  Finis  ;  and  below  that  the 
colophon,  in  sonnet  form  : — 

F  inita  e  lopra  delinclito  et  diuo 

dante  alleghieri  Fiorentin  poeta 

lacui  anima  sancta  alberga  lieta 

nel  ciel  seren  one  sempre  il  fia  uiuo 
D  iniola  benuenuto  mai  fia  priuo 

Deterna  fama  che  sua  mansueta 

3  Manicardi  and  Massera,  p.  23. 

s  I  quote  from  the  copy  in  the  Harvard  University 
Library.  The  only  previous  reprint  of  this  version  of 
the  sonnet,  as  far  as  I  know,  is  the  slightly  inaccurate 
one  by  Colomb  De  Batines  in  his  Bibliografia  dantesca, 
vol.  i,  Prato,  1845,  pp.  25-26. 


lyra  opero  comentando  il  poeta 
per  cui  il  texto  a  noi  e  intellectiuo 

C  hristofal  Berardi  pisaurense  detti 
opera  e  facto  indegno  correctore 
per  quanto  intese  di  quella  i  subietti 

D  e  spiera  vendelin  fu  il  starnpatore 
del  mille  quattrocento  e  settantasetti 
correuan  glianni  del  nostro  signore 

The  FINIS  below  this  colophon  is  the  last 
printed  word  of  the  book.  No  indication  of  the 
authorship  of  the  ' '  Dante  Alighieri  son  .  .  . " 
appears  anywhere  in  the  volume. 

The  sonnet  next  appears  in  the  Venice  1555 
edition  of  the  Divine  Comedy,  edited  by  Lodovico 
Dolce.  It  is  on  the  verso  of  the  leaf  num- 
bered *  iii,  below  a  portrait  of  Dante,  and  is 
headed  SONETTO  DEL  BOCCACCIO  IN  LODE  DI 
DANTE.  No  reference  to  the  authorship  of  the 
sonnet  appears  elsewhere  in  the  book.  The  re- 
sponsibility for  the  attribution  rests  therefore 
upon  Dolce  ;  but  Dolce  is  notorious  for  literary 
untrustworthiness  in  general  and  for  editorial 
trickery  in  particular,4  and  his  attribution  has 
therefore  not  the  slightest  weight. 

In  view  of  the  flatness  and  harshness  of  the 
versified  colophon  of  the  1477  edition,  its  author, 
presumably  Berardi,  can  hardly  be  considered  as 
a  possible  author  of  the  "Dante  Alighieri  son 
..."  The  sonnet  therefore  remains  anonymous. 
The  praise  of  Dante  for  elegantia  and  the  clear 
differentiation  degno  /  di  temporale  e  spiritual  lec- 
tura seem  to  me  indicative  of  Renaissance  author- 
ship, and  the  characterization  magna  terra  seems 
to  me  non-Florentine. 

The  agionse  is  intransitive.  The  second  che  is 
for  ch'  .1. 

Dolce  modernized  the  spelling  and  the  punctua- 
tion of  the  sonnet,  and  made  six  deliberate 
changes  in  wording,  four  of  them  certainly  for 
the  worse.  For  the  second  che  he  substituted 
the  banal  gran  ;  for  magna  terra  he  substituted 
gloriosa,  which  is  most  inappropriate  in  view  of 
the  instance  of  Florentine  behavior  here  in  ques- 
tion ;  for  et  io  he  substituted  a  me  ;  for  the  ironic 
gratia  he  substituted  the  weak  colpa  ;  and  for 

*  See  E.  A.  Cicogna,  Memoria  intorno  la  vita  e  gli  scritli 
di  Messer  Lodovico  Dolce,  in  Memorie  delV  1.  R.  Istituto 
Veneto,  xi  (1862),  pp.  93-108,  especially  p.  96  and  pp. 
107-108 ;  and  G.  Carducci  and  S.  Ferrari,  Le  rime  di 
Francesco  Petrarca,  Florence,  1899,  pp.  xx-xxi. 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  N01ES. 


139 


corpo  :  lalma  ha  il  he  substituted  corpo,  e  V  alma 
il,  destroying  the  antithesis.  He  omitted  the  a  of 
the  last  line.  The  current  version  of  the  sonnet, 
being  derived  from  that  of  Dolce,  contains  his 
substitutions. 

Boccaccio's  Canzoniere,  then,  must  lose  the 
poem  by  which  it  has  been  most  widely  known. 
It  retains,  however,  a  number  of  sonnets  of  great 
beauty,  among  them  the  last  three  of  those  trans- 
lated by  Rossetti.5  The  last  of  these  in  particu- 
lar, "  Intorne  ad  una  fonte  .  .  .,"  is  as  delightful 
a  bit  of  lyric  art  as  the  Trecento  can  show. 


E.    H.    WlLKINS. 


Hanwd  University. 


SPELLING   IN    THE   OWL  AND   THE 
NIGHTINGALE 

In  a  paper  on  The  Proverbs  of  Alfred  read  be- 
fore the  London  Philological  Society  in  1897,1 
Professor  Skeat  called  attention  to  certain  pecu- 
liarities of  spelling  that  he  had  observed  in  the 
re-discovered  Trinity  College  Cambridge  MS.  of 
The  Proverbs,  and  in  the  earlier  text  of  Lajamon, 
the  Old  Kentish  Sermons,  Genesis  and  Exodus, 
portions  of  The  Domesday  Book,  King  Horn,  and 
Havelok.  These  peculiarities  he  ascribed  to  a 
tendency  natural  to  a  French  copyist  ' '  to  express 
sounds  by  French  symbols,  according  to  his  own 
pronunciation";  and  he  suggested  that  "in  all 
our  thirteenth-century  pieces  we  should  always  be 
on  the  watch  for  such  possibilities."  In  the  ap- 
pendix to  his  Notes  on  English  Etymology,  in  his 
Clarendon  Press  edition  of  Havelok,  pp.  xiii-xvi, 
and  in  his  Clarendon  Press  edition  of  The  Proverbs 
of  Alfred,  pp.  xii-xx,  he  has  dealt  further  with  the 
peculiarities  in  these  particular  pieces. — Additions 
of  like  peculiarities  in  other  MSS.  will  serve  to 
record  the  correspondences  that  exist  in  the  other 
MSS.,  as  well  as  to  test  Professor  Skeat' s  theories. 

Both  MSS.  of  The  Owl  and  the  Nightingale  con- 
tain Old  French  poems  by  Chardry.  The  Jesus 

5  Nos.  xvu,  LXVII,  and  xn  in  the  Baldelli  and  Moutier 
editions  of  the  Rime. 

1  Transactions,  1895-1898,  pp.  399-418. 


College  MS.  includes  a  version  of  The  Proverbs.* 
I  have  shown  (cf.  my  edition  of  The  Owl,  Belles 
Lettres  Series,  1907,  pp.  x  1.  4,  etc.,  xviii-xix) 
that  in  each  MS.  the  French  poems  were  probably 
copied  by  the  scribe  of  The  Owl. 

In  his  remarks3  on  The  Proverbs  Professor 
Skeat  calls  attention  to  the  confusion  or  poor 
formation  of  the  characters  j,  fi,  wen,  &,  in  the 
MSS.  ,  and  assigns  this  to  the  scribes'  lack  of  fami- 
liarity with  these  characters.  I  have  pointed  out 
(cf.  my  Owl,  pp.  xiii  (1),  xiv,  and  references  on 
those  pages  to  numerous  notes,  especially  Notes 
57,  p.  153,  and  1195,  p.  174,  and  references 
therein)  that  just  this  confusion  in  the  common 
archetype  of  the  two  MSS.  of  The  Owl  or  in  an 
original  of  that  common  archetype  (cf.  my  edi- 
tion, pp.  xiii,  par.  3  -  xvi,  par.  4),  has  led  to 
incorrect  use  of  5,  />,  iven,  y,  &,  in  the  two  MSS.— 
But  further  correspondences  with  Professor  Skeat' s 
lists  are  found  in  the  MSS.  of  The  Owl. 

The  following  notes  concerning  spelling  in  the 
MSS.  are  based  on  my  personal  examination  of  the 
MSS.  and  on  photographs  and  collations  indicated 
on  page  2  of  my  edition  of  The  Oiol.  The  group- 
ing of  the  notes  is  according  to  Professor  Skeat' s 
grouping  of  the  sounds  especially  concerned,  in 
the  appendix  of  his  Notes  on  English  Etymology, 
pp.  471  ff.,  in  his  edition  of  Havelok,  pp.  ix-xvi, 
and  in  his  edition  of  The  Proverbs  of  Alfred,  pp. 
xii-xx.  C  denotes  the  Cotton  MS.  of  The  Owl ; 
J,  the  Jesus  College  MS.  Where  no  indication  of 
MS.  is  given,  the  form  is  common  to  both  MSS. 
As  each  passage  is  considered,  reference  should 
be  made  to  my  Glossary,  my  Notes,  and  the  list 
of  MSS.  variations  at  the  foot  of  my  Texts. 

(1)  Confusion  as  to  initial  h  (cf.  Sweet,  Hist. 
Eng.  bounds,  '§§  724,  726)  :  C  e  for  he  1475  ;   is 
for  his  515,  C  403  571  1483  ;  C  it  for  hit  118 
1090  ;  C  attorn,  J  atom  1527  ;  C  god  ede  582  ;  C 
swikel  ede  838  ;  C  hwitestu  for  witestu  1356  ;   C 
houle  for  ule  1662  1785  ;  C  hule  for  ule  41,  etc., 
seventeen  times  ;  C  hure  for  ure  185;  C  hswucche 
1324  ;   C  his  for  is  1498  1761  ;   C  houd  si/>e,  J 
houfisyfie  1586  ;  hunke  1733  ;  J  her  for  er  1225  ; 
J  hore  for  ore  1750  ;  C  hartu  1177  ;  C  attest  255. 

(2)  s  for  sh,  sch  (Sweet,  H.  E.  S.,   §§  603, 

1  Skeat' s  edition  for  the  Clarendon  Press  ;  Morris's  Old 
English  Miscellany,  pp.  102-130,  E.  E.  T.  S.  Pub.,  69. 
s  Transactions,  p.  403 ;  edition,  pp.  xiv-xv. 


140 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


607):  initial — C  sol  1025  ;  C  sewi  151  ;  solde 
975,  C  977,  J  764  ;  wrf  sipe  1099,  Jwrferipe  1288  ; 
J  isend  1336  ;  J  at  set  44  ;  J  sarp  79;  J  sende  274 ; 
J  sit  286  ;  J  sal  346,  1151-94-95-98-99,  1205- 
47-49  ;  J  sale  1206  ;  J  sunef  1165  ;  J  sulle 
1192,  1204  ;  3i  srud  1529:  medial— C  fleses  895, 
J  fleys  1399  1408  ;  J  vleysse  83  ;  J  fleyses  895  ;  J 
fleyes  1410  ;  J  fleysse  1387,  1411 ;  J  fleysses  1388- 
90-92-97,  1414  ;  J  neysse  1349-87,  1546  ;  J 
ayssest  473  ;  J  meysse  84  ;  J  fruysse  1659  :  final 
— J  yris  322  ;  J  fys,  C  fih*,  J  fleys,  C  flehs 
1007.  Cf.  loss  of  initial  s  before  eh  (cf.  Sweet, 
H.  E.S.,  §  607)  in  C  chadde  1616,  C  charpe 
1676,  C  cAeWe  1713,  C  of  chamed  934  (cf.  my 
Note,  1402). 

(3)  Confusion  as  to  initial  /> ;  see  references  in 
paragraph  3  of  this  paper. 

(4)  w  for  hw  (cf.  Sweet,  H.  E.  S.,  §§  725-6, 
500)  occurs  only  in  C  (exc.  J  noware  C  noivar 
1168  ;  J  wile  1451  ;  awene  1258) :  wa  (hwa)  1782 ; 
wan  (hwanne)  459,   591,  etc.,  seven  times  ;  wan 
(hwam)  453,  716  :  wane   (hwanne~)  420,    451, 
etc.,  eleven  times  ;  wanene  ( hivanan^)  1300  ;  wanne 
(hwanne~)  430,  etc.,  five  times  ;  war  (hwair*)  526, 
etc.,  eight  times  ;  ware  (hwair)  892,  1049  ;  awer 
(ceghwcer)  1342  ;  ware  (hwaefer)  151;  wareuore 
(hwcer-)  267,  268,  715  ;  warto  (hwcer-}  464 ;  wat 
(hwaef)  635,  1075,  1298 ;  wafer  (hwaefer}  1064; 
wefer  (pron. )  991  ;  wefer  (conj.)  824,  1360  ;  wi 
(hwi~)  218,  268,  etc.;  wider  (hwider)  724  ;  wile 
(hwle)  6,  199,  1020,  1141;  wile  (hwilum)  202, 
1016  ;    wo    (hwa)    113,    196,    528,    680  ;    won 
(hwanne)  324  ;  wone  (hwanne)  327,  687,  etc., 
five  times  ;  wonne  (  hwanne*)  38  ;  wueche  (  hwylce) 
1319  ;  nowar  1168  ;  un  wate  1148  ;  ei  wat  1056  ; 
aiware  216  ;  wei  ("hwey")  1009.    Cp.  hwitestu 
under  (1). — For  comment  on  occurrence  of  hw  in 
C  only  between  909-962  and  1195-1794,  see  my 
remarks  on  the  two  sets  of  spellings  in  each  MS. 
(first  noted  by  me,  in  1900)  in  my  edition  pp. 
viii-ix,  xvi,  in  my  Notes  902,  962,  1184,  and  in 
Anglia,  xxxni,  part  ii,  page  258.     My  error  of 
932  for  909  at  page  viii  of  my  edition,  and  the 
consequent  error  in  the  last  sentence  of  Note  932, 
are  corrected  in  the  reprint  of  my  edition.     — wh 
occurs  only  in  the  first  spelling  in  C,  and  only  in 
whar  64,  whi  150,  whonene  138,  and  what  60,  484. 
—  On  this  group  see  Forster,  Engl.  Stud,  xxxni. 


10   note  2 ;    Luhmann,    Die    Uberlieferung  von 
Lazamon's  Brut,  p.  29. 

(5)  u  dropped  after  initial  w  (cf.  Sweet,  H.  E. 
S.,  §  601):  wr/>  572,  C  340,  J  769-70,  J  1158  ; 
wrfe  400,  846,  1173  ;   wrf  sipe  1099  J  1288  ; 
C  wnder,  J  wndre  852  ;  C  wle  406  ;  C  wile  896  ; 
C  wit  499  ;  C  wndri  228  ;  C  wnest  589  ;  C  wnienge 
614  ;  C  wrchen  408  ;  C  wrs  34  ;  C  wrht,  J  wrf 
548  ;  J  fur  wrfe  573-5  ;  J  vnwrf  770  ;  J  wnne 
1100  ;  J  wrehe  722  ;  J  wrs  793  ;  J  wrse  303, 
505  ;  C  unwrf  339  ;  wrste  J  10,  C  121  ;  J  wrfful 
1481.    Note  omission  of  e  in  J  wre  203  ;  J  wrcche 
1321  ;  and  also  C  wse  54  (rime-word  rise'),  C  wte 
440  (rime-word  wlite}. 

(6)  Avoidance  of  initial  y  sound  (cf.  Sweet, 
H.  E.  S.,  §  608,  p.   163):  C  ov  114,  115,  C  ow 
1683,  1686,  1688,    1697-8,  C  eu  1793,  J  only 
eu  ;  C   ower  1685-99,   1736,   J  oure  eur  eure. 
Note  the  interesting  occurrence  of  hunke  for  inc 
and  C  je,  J  we  for  ge  or  (?)  we  at  1733-4  ;  but 
cp.  J  eu  for  us  at  1747. — Against  this  group  see 
Luhmann,  op.  cit.,  p.  30. 

(7)  Glide-vowel  inserted  after  r :  Gareu  1498  ; 
C  hareme  areme  1161-2  ;  C  harem,  J  a  tern  1260  ; 
C  oreue  1157  ;  C  Awe/190  ;  C  bare%,  J  bareh  408  ; 
C  ares,  J  areh  407  ;  C  are%fe,   J  arehfe  404, 
1716;  J  fureh  bureh  765-6;  C  eremi(n)g  1111; 
C  moregeiinge,  J  moreweninge  1718  ;  J  amorewe 
432  ;  J  sorewe  431,  884  ;  narewe  68,  377  ;  %arewe 
378  ;     J    fureh    447  ;     J    iborewe    883  ;     cp. 
wwre(s)(A)A;  355,  J  718,  J  897,  J  1402-48. 
Observe,  however,  the  glide- vowel  in  (cf.  Mors- 
bach,  M.  E.  Gram.,  §  70,  anm.  4)  J  holeh  1113  ; 
J  holeuh  643  ;  J  folewef  307 ;  J  folewi  389  ;  J 
froueri  535  ;  Caluered  685  ;  abisemar  148  ;  abise- 
mere   1311  ;    steuene  C  727,898,    C  915-86,    C 
1655-82,    C  1720  ;   lauedi  959,  1569  ;  lauedies 
1338,    1519-63;   J  leuedi   1051.— Against    this 
group  see  Luhmann,  op.  cit.,  p.  31. 

(8)  Difficulty  as  to  final  gutteral  (O.  E.  h) 
(cf.  Sweet,  H.  E.  S.,  §  606):  C  furch  1401  ;  C 
furs  823  ;   C  fiwfo,  cf.  my  Notes   1256,   1405, 
1428  ;  J  fur  1405  ;  C  nef  (?  ney)  for  neh  1267  ; 
C  innof,  cf.  my  Note  1319. 

(9)  Difficulty  as  to  ht  (cf.  Sweet,  H.  E.  S., 
§§  606,  727):  C  nowt  (J  nouht)  1391-5  ;  C  nou 
or  non  for  no%t  1275  ;  C   nout  1426  ;   C  nawt 
1470,  1620,  1740  ;   C  nof  1011  (perhaps  nof  is 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


141 


nofier) ;  C  mist  78  (rime- word  i  di$t,  cf.  my  Note), 
cp.  C  mi^st,  J  mist  642  and  my  Note  ;  C  mist,  J 
myst  1640  ;  J  mist  1113  :  J  maist  353  ;  J  towehte 
703.  Cf.  C  orig.  reading  mi%test  for  nustest  and  J 
nustest  much  like  mistest  (cf.  MSS.Var.  in  my  edi- 
tion), 1300  ;  C  nujfe,  J  mihte,  O.  E.  nyfoji  1751. 
(10)  Difficulty  as  to  Id  :  C  cM  1440,  1315 
(J  chid) ;  C  golfinc  1130  ;  C  ufe  for  selde  943. 

(12)  Difficulty  as  to  final  nd:  C  bi  stant  1438; 
C  commonly  an  for  and,  cf.  my  Note,  1371.    Cp. 
long  for  lond  C  1031. 

(13)  Difficulty  as  to  ng,  nk  :  C  ftng  1694,  C 
/MM/  1592,  CfrmgA  1473,  CAwc/i  164,  951,  C 
/>unche/>  1472 — all   for   J  fiinkfi  ;    J  genchefi  < 
gengef> ;  C  amon  164  ;  C  strenfie  781,  1674  ;   C 
spring  1042  ;  C  "gunling  1433.     Cf.  /on^  for  /ond 
C  1031. 

(14)  tli  used  for  t  :   J  bigethe  726  ;   theche  J 
1334-47,  1449,  C  1766  (cf.  MSS.  Var. ) :  J  the/>  for 
tefi  1538.  —Note  -t  >  -d  (cf.  Skeatedit.  Proverbs, 
§  12)  after  Anglo-Norman  style  :  C  ad  325  (cf. 
my  Note);   C  schald  1572  ;  wod  1190,  C  1049  ; 
C  mod  636  ;    guld  1427  ;    C  stard  329  :   C  nard 
1138  ;  jo/cmZ  1737  ;  J  playd  5. 

(15)  In  unaccented  syllables  S  or/  >  -d  or  -£ 
(cf.  Sweet,  JET.  #  &,  §  754):   wit  57,  C  56,  C 
111,  C  131,  C  287,  C  291,  C  292,  C  301,  C306, 
863  ;  C  wit  ute  183,  264,  863  ;  in  C  especially 
in  pi.  and  3  sg,  pr.  of  verbs,  e.  g. ,  C  kumed  683, 
1246  ;  C  singet  196  ;  C  fulied  1239  ;    C  tulied 
1240  ;  haued  C  119,   C  167,  J  1538  ;  C  hawet 
113  ;  C  schunet  236  ;  C  schuniet  229  ;  C  wened 
901  ;  C  bi  chermet  279  ;  C  bi  gredet  67  ;  C  biledet 
68  ;  C  segget  98,  113,  127,  244,  290  ;  C  hatiet 
230;  C  totorued  1119;  Cquad  117  ;  C  god  647  ; 
C  nabbed  536  ;  C  habbet  651  ;  C  to  twichet  1647. 
See  my  remarks  in  Anglia  xxxin,  264,  266. 


Hiram  College. 


JOHN  EDWIN  WELLS. 


OLD  SAXON   KARM  AND  HROM : 
GENESIS  254,  HELIAND  2459 

The  OS.  karm,  which  was  first  pronounced  by 
Braune  (in  his  memorable  editio  princeps  of  the 
Genesis)  a  '  nonce  word  '  in  Germanic,  has  since 


been  properly  connected1  with  the  well-known 
OE.  cirm,  cyrm  '  shout,  clamor,  cry  '  (verb  air- 
man), by  the  side  of  which  the  form  cearm  is  once 
found,1  further  with  the  M.  Low  Franc,  verb  kar- 
men,  kermen,  Dutch  kermen  (see  Franck,  Etym. 
Wb. ),  N.  Engl.  archaic  and  dialectal  chirm,  verb 
and  noun  (in  its  latter  function  with  the  by -form 
chram,  see  NED. :  chirm,  charm,  sb.*).  But  the 
meaning  of  karm  in  Gen.  254  tho  gihordun  sioe 
fegere  karm  /  an  allaro  selifia  gihuuen,  sundiga 
liudi  I  firinuuerk  fremmian  has  not  yet  been  set- 
tled. Braune  and  Heyne  render  it  by  '  Seufzen, ' 
Behaghel  by  'Jammern,'  Holthausenby  'Klage'; 
Vetter  translates  :  '  da  horten  sie  Sterbende  a'ch- 
zen, '  Koegel  :  '  da  horten  sie  der  Todgeweihten 
Jammern,'  Symons  :  '  das  Schreien  oder  Jammern 
der  Todgeweihten,'  Jellinek,8  followed  by  Piper: 
'das  wilde  Toben  der  dem  Tode  Verfallenen. ' 
None  of  these  versions  can  be  accepted  as  satis- 
factory. Even  Jellinek,  who  very  sensibly  called 
attention  to  the  parallel  passage  of  the  OE.  Gene- 
sis 2406  ff.,  failed  to  make  clear  the  interesting 
situation,  possibly  because  he  was  one  of  those 
overzealous  critics  who — taking  their  cue  from  a 
recognized  master — set  out  systematically  to  dis- 
cover incongruities  and  obscurities  in  the  newly 
found  poem  ("Wie  verschwommen  und  unklar 
ist  dagegen  alles  in  dem  as.  Gedicht,"  1.  c.).  At 
any  rate,  although  fegero  karm  in  1.  314  (so  OE. 
Gen.  2546  hlynn  wear®  on  ceastrum,  /  cirm  ar- 
leasra  cwealmes  on  ore,  in  the  account  of  the  de- 
struction of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah)  clearly  refers 
to  the  cries  or  lamentations  of  the  doomed  Sodom- 
ites, there  is  no  connection  in  the  previous  passage 
(1.  254)  between  the  noise  made  by  the  people  and 
the  fact  of  their  being  fegi.  They  do  not  cry  out 
because  they  are  doomed  to  die  ;  for  they  are  en- 
tirely unaware  of  the  impending  fate.  Holofer- 
nes,  in  the  OE.  Judith,  is  in  a  similar  situation  ; 
he,  together  with  his  men,  is  fcege — fieah  Sees  se 
rlca  ne  wende,  19  f.,  yet,  in  dramatic  contrast 
with  the  approaching  doom,  they  proceed  to  make 
an  exhibition  of  uproarious  revelry  :  hloh  and 
hlydde,  hlynede  and  dynede,  /  food  mihten  flra 

1  Cf.  Sijmons,  Z.  /.  d.  Ph.,  xxvm,  152;  Holthausen, 
Alisdchsisches  Elemcntarbuch,  §  297,  n.  2. 

*  Wulfst.  186.  18  se  forhia  cearm  (var.  cyrm)  and  Jxera 
folca  wop. 

3Anz.f.  d.  A.,  xxr,  219. 


142 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


beam  feorran  gehyran,  /  hu  se  stlftmoda  styrmde 
and  gylede,  /  modig  and  medugdl .  .  .  23  ff.  Thus, 
the  Sodomites  are  found  to  carry  on  a  tumultuous 
'  carnival '  of  wickedness,  which  is  more  fully 
described  in  the  OE.  Gen.  2406  ff. :  ic  on  flisse 
byrig  bearhtm  gehUre,  /  synnigra  cyrm  sivifte 
hludne,  /  ealogdlra  gylp,  yfele  sprcece  /  werod 
under  weallum  habban,  and  furthermore  specified 
by  contrasting  it  with  the  two  other  regular  orders 
of  sins  ( '  opera, '  '  cogitatioues ' ) :  ic  willefandigan 
nu  .  .  .  hwcet  fld  men  don,  /  gif  hie  swd  swlfte  synna 
fremmaft  /  fleawum  and  geflancum,  swa  hie  on 
flweorh  sprecaft  .  .  .  2410  ff. 

The  ultimate  source  of  this  peculiar  conception 
is  obviously  the  Bible  verse,  naively  misunderstood 
and  boldly  elaborated,  Gen.  xvm,  20  :  clamor4 
Sodomorum  et  Gomorrhae  multiplicatus  est,  et 
peccatum  eorum  aggravatum  est  nimis.  (Also 
OE.  Gen.  241  Off.  may  be  readily  explained  by 
Gen.  xvm,  21.)  There  appears,  however,  in 
the  OS.  version  another  very  noteworthy  element 
which  was  presumably  intended  to  furnish,  in  a 
measure,  a  psychological  explanation  of  the  bois- 
terous behavior  of  the  sinners,  namely,  their  asso- 
ciation with  'devils':  uuas  tharfmndo  gimang,6 
uurefiaro  uuihteo,  thea  an  that  uuam  habdunjthea 
liudi  farledid,  256.  (Similarly  154  f.:  habdun 
im  so  uiluflunda  barnj  uuammasgeuulsid. )  They 
might  well  be  called. 'devil's  disciples  (or,  ser- 
vants)' and  placed  in  the  same  class  as  the  Mer- 
medonians  who  in  the  OE.  Andreas  are  credited 
with  making  cirm  micel,  1.  41  ff. :  fleer  wees  cirm 
micel  I  geond  Mermedonia,  mdnfulra  hloft,  /  for- 
denra  gedrceg,  syflflan  deofles  flegnas  /  gedscodon 
ceftelinges  sl8  ;  138  :  cirmdon  caldheorte.  In  other 
words,  the  sinners  of  Sodom  show  one  of  the  char- 
acteristic traits  of  the  devils.  The  evil  spirits, 
e.  g.,  who  harass  the  saintly  GuSlac,  are  repre- 
sented as  proceeding  in  this  fashion  :  fleer  com 
micel  mcenego  fldra  werigra  gdsta,  and  hie  eal  fleet 
has  mid  heora  cyrme  ge/yldon,  Prose  Life  of  GirS- 
lac,  ed.  Gonser,  5.  105  ;  and  liie  wceron  ondry- 
senlice  on  stefne  5.  122  (—  vocibus  horrisonis,  in 

*^Elfric  as  well  as  Alfred  (Cur.  P.  427.  33)  translate 
clamor  by  hream. 

5  This  remarkably  concrete  feature  calls  to  mind  the 
scene  in  which  Adam,  after  the  fall,  seems  to  realize  the 
presence  (or,  nearness)  of  hell :  nu  makt  thu  sean  thia 
suarton  hell  /  ginon  grddaga,  nu  thu  sia  grimman  maht  / 
hinana  gihorean,  OS.  Gen.  2,  OE.  Gen.  792t 


the  original);  and  lile  swa  ungemetllce  hrymdon 
andforan  mid  forhtlicum  egesum  and  ungefiwcer- 
nessum,  fleet  hit  fluhte,  fleet  hit  eall  betweoh  heo- 
fone  and  eorftan  hleoflrode  flam  egesllcum  stefnum 
5.  128  (=  .  .  .  immensis  vagitibus,  clangisonis 
boatibus,  etc. )6  The  same  'pandemonium'  recurs 
in  the  poem  of  GuKlac,  866  ff.,  233  ff.  (e.  g.,  871 
wo'fte  hofvn,  /  hludne  herecirm,  877  wop  ahofun, 
880  cirmdon  ;  235  cearfulra  cirm,  cleopedon  monige 
I  feonda  foresprecan,  firenum  gulpon  ;  cf.  ceargesta 
cirm,  364).  Another  kind  of  a  noisy  occupation 
of  devils  was  observed  by  Drihthelm  when  in  his 
famous  vision  (Beda,  Hist.  Eccl.,  v,  12)  he  vis- 
ited hell  :  audio  .  .  .  sonitum  immanissimi  Jletus  ac 
miserrimi  [preceding  from  human  victims],  simul 
et  cachinnum  crepitantem  (—  OE.  Bed.  426.  29 
micel  gehled  and  ceahetunge)  quasi  uulgi  indocti 
captis  hostibus  insultantis  [proceeding  from  a  band 
of  '  malign  spirits ']  .7 

Apart  from  this,  the  devils  (in  their  misery  of 
hell)  are  noted  for  the  noise  characterized  by  Mil- 
ton as  ' '  other  than  the  sound  of  dance  or  song,  / 
Torment  and  loud  lament,  and  furious  rage," 
Par.  L.,  vin,  243. 8  Thus,  the  OE.  poem  of  The 
Fallen  Angels  in  the  '  Christ  and  Satan  '  group  is 
full  of  the  wailinga  of  the  wretched  host,  see  11. 
133  f.,  280  f.,  319  f.,  333  f.,  338  ff.;  also  Tempt. 
52  =  Cr.  and  Sat.  717  :  hwllum  hream  dstdg  ; 
Blickl.  Horn.  87.  3  f.,  Gu.  1045 ff.  In  fact,  this 
hream  of  the  devils  is  considered  one  of  the  typical 
features  of  hell,  as  may  be  seen  from  Cynewulf's 
statements  of  contrast  such  as  swd  helle  hienflu  swa 
heofones  mcerflu .  .  swd  mid  Dryhten  dream  swd  mid 
deoflum  hream,  Christ  591.  Cf.  Gen.  37 f.,  Gu. 
6071,  Sal.  and  Sat.  464  ff.9 

This  noun  hream  '  clamor, '  which  appears  more 
or  less  synonymous  with  wop  in  a  number  of  pas- 
sages,10 has  not  been  traced  so  far  in  the  Old  Saxon. 

6  Similar  is  the  experience  of  St.  Antonius,  see  Roskoff, 
Geschichte  des  Teufels,  I,  278. 

7  Perhaps  such  shouting  was  meant  by  Chaucer  in  The 
Nonne  Preestes  Tale,  B  4579  :  they  yclleden  as  feendes  doon 
in  helle. 

8  Aen.  VI,  557  hinc  exaudiri  gemitus  .  .  . 

9  Among  the  terrors  of  the  day  of  judgment  is  mentioned 
helwara  hream,  Wulfst.  186.  7;  cf.  Crist  997  :  'Sir  bti$  cirm 
ond  cearu  .  .  ,  gehreow  and  hlud  wop  .  .  . 

10  So  Blickl.  Horn.  61.  36  wop  and  hream,  115.  15  hream 
and  wop  ;  also  hr'yman  :  ^Elfr.,  Horn,  n,  454.  10  hrymdon 
\>asrrlhte  wepende,    Blickl.   Horn.    2-19.  1    (Legend   of  St. 
Andrew)  wepende  and  hrymendc. 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


143 


But  I  submit  whether  it  is  not  perhaps  to  be  recog- 
nized in  Hel.  2459  (2457  ff.):  endi  he  it  an  thea 
•unirnon  hand,  /  undar  flundo  folc  fard  gekiusid,  / 
an  Godes  unuuillean  endi  an  gramono  hrom  /  endi 
an  fiurcs  farm.  It  is  quite  possible,  indeed,  that 
an  gramono  hrom  means  '  zum  Frohlocken  der 
Teufel '  (Piper),  but  in  view  of  such  passages  as 
Crist  59 Iff.,  the  identification  of  this  hrom  and 
OE.  hream  seems  to  me  worth  considering.  Cer- 
tainly, the  interpretation  :  '  his  lot  will  be  with 
the  fiends  ;  there  is  in  store  for  him  God's  dis- 
pleasure, wailing  of  fiends,  torment  of  fire,'  is 
entirely  natural. 

If  this  view  be  accepted,  the  noun  hrom  '  cry ' 
(with  5  from  Gmc.  au}  is,  of  course,  to  be  sepa- 
rated from  hrom11  'gloria,'  'gloriatio'  ('Ruhm'). 
It  should  be  mentioned  that  the  latter,  together 
with  its  derivatives,  is  nearly  always  spelt  in  the 
Cottonian  MS.  with  uo,  so  hruom  1562,  5040, 
5111,  hruomig  945,  4926,  hruomian  5043,  5046, 
whereas  in  1.  2459  both  MSS.  show  the  o,  — but, 
unfortunately  enough,  the  form  hrom  ( '  gloria ' ) 
appears  also  in  C.  1572. 

In  a  number  of  Ags.  dictionaries  and  glossaries 
a  peculiar  uncertainty  or  confusion  is  met  with 
concerning  the  relation  between  hream  (and  the 
derived  verb  hryman)  and  hreman,  hremig  (OS. 
hr(u~)omian,  hr(u)omig}.  There  would  be  no 
semasiological  difficulty  in  deriving  the  meaning 
of  '  boast '  from  that  of  '  cry. '  But,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  two  sets  are  strictly  kept  apart  both 
in  form  and  meaning.12  The  verb  hryman  (some- 
times hrlman)  '  cry  out,'  occurs,  of  course,  in  the 
form  hreman  in  Anglian  texts  (also  Cur.  Past. 
429.  1,  see  Cosijn,  Altwests.  Gram.,  i,  §  97  ; 
Biilbring,  §  183,  n.),  but  the  e  in  hreman  '  glo- 
riari,'  hremig  '  exultans,'  '  gloriabundus '  is  quite 
stable.13  The  only  exception  cited  in  dictionaries 
is  from  Brun.  59,  where  the  Parker  MS.  reads 
hramige  with  e  above  the  line,  i.  e.,  as  Zupitza 
remarks,  ('e  iiber  getilgtem  a."  Besides,  the 

11  Very  likely  Wadstein  is  right  in  rendering  hrom  = 
oerbn  (Aen.  xi,  688),  Oxf.  Verg.  Gl.  (Wadstein,  p.  114) 
by  '  Ruhmredigkeit.' 

12 In  gehfrum  hremig,  Red.  d.  Seel.  9  (which  is  perhaps 
modeled  after  the  well-known  blissum  hremig),  the  sense  of 
'exultant,'  'elated  '  seems  to  have  passed  into  the  general 
meaning  of  'moved,'  'agitated.' 

lsThe  spelling  sigchrcemhj  in  the  Kentish  Hymn  (Gr.- 
Wii.  n,  226),  1.  30,  is  irrelevant. 


OS.  and  OHG.  forms  with  d,  uo  are  an  insepar- 
able bar  to  connecting  hream "  and  hreman  '  glo- 
riari,'  We  cannot  escape  the  conclusion  that 
there  existed  two  entirely  distinct  sets  :  1)  OE. 
hream  (OS.  hrom,  Hel.  2459?),  ME.  ream,  rcem, 
rem  (see  Stratmann-Bradley) ;  OE.  hryman  {hre- 
man}, ME.  rcmen,  NE.  dial,  ream  (see  Engl. 
Dial.  Diet.}.  2)  OS.  hrom,  hruom,  OHG.  hruom 
(OE.  *hrom  lost);  OE.  hreman,  OS.  hromian, 
hruomian,  OHG.  hruomian  ;  OE.  hremig,  OS. 
hromag,  hruomig,  OHG.  hruomac,  ruomig.  It 
should  be  added  that  while  OE.  hream  occurs  in 
prose  and  poetry,  and  hr'jman  in  prose  exclusively, 
OE.  hreman  and  hremig  are  never  found  outside  of 
poetical  texts.  This  might  point  to  a  certain  ar- 
chaic flavor  of  the  latter  group  in  OE.  and  furnish 
a  possible  explanation  of  the  early  disappearance 
of  the  noun  hrom. 


FR.  KLAEBER. 


The  University  of  Minnesota. 


INFLUENCE  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 
ON  FLAUBERT  BEFORE  1851 

Even  in  Flaubert's  youth  his  writings1  direct 
the  reader's  attention  to  the  two  sides  of  his 
nature  :  overflowing  romanticism  and  the  power 
of  observation.  Both  of  these  are  evident  in 
Novembre  (1842),  though,  as  is  to  be  expected 
from  the  date,  the  second  trait  is  more  apparent 
here  than  in  the  other  works  of  the  period,  until 
the  first  Education  sentimentale  (1845).  Many 
influences  operated  to  develop  these  two  charac- 
teristics— heredity,  surroundings,  readings,  inti- 
mate friendships,  personal  experiences.  These 
have  been  examined  in  detail  by  M.  Rene"  Des- 
charmes.2  It  is  my  purpose  to  consider  only  a 
particular  case,  which  appears  to  be  closely  asso- 
ciated with  the  process  by  which  Flaubert,  the 
violent  romantic,  became  the  realist  of  a  later  day. 
This  particular  case  is  concerned  with  his  readings 

14  On  the  etymology  of  hream  see  Noreen,  Urgerm.  Laut- 
lehre,  p.  68  ;  Francis  A.  Wood,  Color  Names,  p.  116. 

1(Euvres  de  Jeunesse  inedites,  I,  II,  in  [appendice  aux 
oeuvres  completes  de  Gustave  Flaubert].  L.  Conard, 
Paris,  1910.  All  references  are  to  this  edition. 

'Flaubert,  sa  vie,  son  caractdre  et  ses  idees  avani  1857. 
Paris,  1909. 


144 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  jWo.  5. 


in  English  literature,  traces  of  which  abound  in 
the  letters  and  other  writings  of  the  period. 

In  1839  (Corr.,  i,  p.  30)  he  writes  that  he  is 
learning  English  in  order  to  read  Shakespeare 
and  Byron.  All  the  evidence,  however,  indicates 
that  he  made  use  of  translations.3  Be  that  as  it 
may,  he  carried  out  the  important  part  of  his 
purpose  :  he  read  Shakespeare  and  Byron.*  The 
letters  show  that  the  works  of  these  authors  were 
in  his  hands,  or  thoughts  of  them  in  his  mind,  at 
frequent  intervals.  Of  Shakespeare  this  is  espe- 
cially true  in  1845,  1846  (Corr.,  i,  pp.  170,  171, 
187,  250,  257,  269,  459),  though  he  read  Othello 
in  1835,  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  Allusions  to 
Byron  begin  in  1837  and  occur  oftenest  in  1845 
when  he  is  on  Childe  Harold's  traces  in  Switzer- 
land, but  it  is  only  in  1847  that  we  find  references 
which  indicate  that  he  is  reading  specific  poems. 

The  correspondence  and  the  CEuvres  de  Jeunesse 
together  inform  us  that  of  specific  works  by  Shake- 
speare he  read  Othello,  Hamlet,  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
Timon  of  Athens,  a  play  containing  Falstaff,  As 
You  Like  It  (cp.  the  parallel  of  the  seven  stages 
of  love,  (E.  de  J.,  i,  p.  521,  with  the  seven  ages 
of  man,  act  n,  scene  7),  King  Lear  (cf.  the  scene 
between  the  king  and  his  fool,  Loys  xi,  (E.  de  J. , 
I,  pp.  305-311,  with  several  scenes  in  Lear;  e.  g. 
act  in,  scene  6).  For  Byron  the  list  consists  of 
Cain,  Sardanapalus,  Childe  Harold,  The  Giaour, 
Darkness  (cf.  the  parallelism  pointed  out  by  Es- 
teve,6  with  a  passage  from  Memoir es  d'unfou,  (E. 

s  "  La  platitude  de  la  traduction  fiancaise  "  ( OS.  de  J., 
i,  p.  496)  occurs  in  a  reference  to  the  hero's  love  for 
Byron  ;  a  quotation  from  Romeo  and  Juliet  (ibid.,  p.  241) 
is  in  French  and  suggests  by  the  scene  number  a  different 
arrangement  from  the  English  version ;  a  reference  to  a 
Shakespearian  passage  (Oorr.,  I,  p.  170)  is  either  inexact 
or  is  based  on  a  much  altered  text. 

4  Scott  is  mentioned  once  in  the  letters  (i,  p.  20),  Gib- 
bon twice  (i,  p.  259  ;  n,  p.  65).  From  the  fondness  for 
the  historical  tale,  evident  in  Flaubert's  choice  of  subjects 
in  CE.  de  «7.,  I,  and  from  his  selection  of  the  king's  visit  to 
Pe"ronne  as  the  groundwork  of  Loys  XI  (CE.  de  J.,  I,  p. 
276),  an  event  that  figures  largely  in  Quentin  Durward,  an 
acquaintance  with  the  Waverly  novels  is  not  unlikely.  It 
is  uncertain  whether  he  knew  Gibbon  first  hand.  One 
reference— to  the  final  chapter  of  the  History — quotes  in- 
exactly the  number  of  years  the  historian  devoted  to  this 
task  :  the  other  might  be  a  souvenir  of  Childe  Harold 
(Canto  in,  st.  107).  Sterne  is  referred  to  once  (CE.  de  J., 
li,  p.  147);  Kobertson  once  (Oorr.,  i,  p.  49). 

6  Byron  etle  roinantismc  franyais,  p.  282. 


de  J.,  i,  p.  498),  Manfred.  The  letters  of  1846, 
however,  indicate  consecutive  and  repeated  read- 
ings of  Shakespeare,  and  there  are  allusions — the 
reference  when  passing  Abydos  in  1850,  for  ex- 
ample— that  suggest  familiarity  with  other  works 
of  Byron.8 

The  Byronic  traces  in  the  youthful  literary 
work  of  Flaubert  have  been  pointed  out  by 
Esteve  and  Descharmes.  I  should  like  to  add 
the  evident  souvenir  of  Manfred  in  Reve  d'Enfer 
(CE.  deJ.,i,  p.  162.). 

There  is  much  of  the  Faust  of  Goethe  here, 
too,  but  the  conflict  between  the  soul  and  the 
demon  as  outlined  in  the  story  of  duke  Arthur, 
as  well  as  the  description  of  his  appearance  and 
the  external  setting  of  the  events,  suggests  stronger 
kinship  with  Byron  than  with  Goethe. 

The  earliest  mentions  of  the  two  English  poets 
in  the  letters  furnish  no  indication  of  the  youthful 
reader's  conception  of  them,  except  that  in  1838 
he  praises  Byron's  hostile  attitude  toward  society 
(CE.  de  J.,  i,  p.  28),  and  in  1839  (i,  p.  49)  he 
finds  more  truth  in  Shakespeare  than  in  history. 
His  conception  of  Byron,  both  as  man  and  as  poet 
can,  however,  be  ascertained  from  the  CEuvres  de 
Jeunesse.  A  Portrait  de  Byron  (i,  p.  25),  writ- 
ten before  1836,  shows  us  the  man  as  pictured 
by  his  fifteen-year-old  reader,  and  passages  from 
Memoir  es  d'un  fou  and  the  Etude  sur  Rabelais, 
both  written  in  1838 — a  year  that  seems  to  mark 
the  crisis  of  the  purely  romantic,  purely  personal 
side  of  Flaubert — give  his  view  of  the  poet.  The 
first  of  these  passages  is  tracing  the  hero's  devel- 
opment : 

"  Je  me  nourris  done  de  cette  polsie  apre  du 
Nord,  qui  retentit  si  bien  comme  les  vagues  de  la 
mer  dans  les  oeuvres  de  Byron.  Souvent  j'en  re- 
tenais  a  la  premiere  lecture  des  fragments  entiers 
et  je  me  les  repetais  a  moi-meme,  comme  une 
chanson  qui  vous  a  charme  et  dont  la  melodic 
vous  poursuit  to uj ours  .  .  .  Ce  caractere  de  pas- 
sion brulante,  joint  a  une  si  profonde  iroiiie  devait 

6  One  is  surprised  to  find  few  or  no  traces  of  Byron's 
Don  Juan.  This  character  is  mentioned  several  times, 
but  merely  as  a  type  of  the  libertine,  as  is  Lovelace.  The 
Nuit  de  Don  Juan  mentioned  by  Maupassant  in  his  study 
of  Flaubert  (ed.  Quantin)  is  now  accessible  in  the  appen- 
dix to  CE.  de  J.,  in.  It  is  a  sketch  for  a  tale  composed 
in  1851  ( Corr.,  n,  p.  62).  Nothing  in  it  suggests  the  Don 
Juan  of  Byron. 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


145 


agir  fortement  sur  une  nature  ardente  et  vierge. 
Tous  ces  echod  inconuus  a  la  somptueuse  dignite 
des  literatures  classiques  avaient  pour  moi  un 
parfum  de  nouveaute",  un  attrait  qui  m'attirait 
sans  cesse  vers  cette  poesie  ge"ante,  qui  vous  donne 
le  vertige  et  vous  fait  tomber  dans  le  goufl're  de 
1'infini."  (  (E.  de  J. ,  i,  p.  496.) 

In  the  second  passage  the  writer  is  following  the 
evolution  of  literary  art  : 

"Ailleurs,  dans  les  socie" te"s  vieillies.  .  .  quand  le 
doute  agagnS  tous  les  coeurs  et  que  toutes  les  belles 
choses  revees  .  .  .  sont  tombe"es  feuille  a  feuille  .  .  , 
que  fait  le  poete  ?  II  se  recueille  en  lui-ineme  ;  il 
a  de  sublimes  elans  d'orgueil  et  des  moments  de 
poignant  de"sespoir  ;  il  chante  toutes  les  agonies 
du  coeur  et  tous  les  neants  de  la  pensee.  Alors, 
.toutes  les  douleurs  qui  1'entourent  .  .  .  resonnent 
dans  son  aine  que  Dieu  a  faite  vaste,  sonore,  im- 
mense, et  en  sortent  par  la  voie  du  genie  pour 
marquer  e'ternellement  dans  1'histoire  la  place 
d'une  socie"te,  d'une  e"poque,  pour  ecrire  ses  larmes, 
pour  ciseler  la  me'moire  de  ses  infortunes — de  nos 
jours  c'est  Byron."  (  (E.  de  J.,  n,  p.  147. ) 

The  following  year  (1839)  in  a  mention  of 
Byron,  close  on  the  heels  of  the  quotations  just 
given,  there  is  a  new  note  : 

"  Sais  tu,  que  la  jeune  generation  des  e"coles  est 
fierement  bete  !  autrefois  elle  avait  de  1' esprit ;  elle 
s'occupait  de  femmes,  de  coups  d'epee,  d' orgies; 
maiiitenant  elle  se  drape  sur  Byron,  reve  de  deses- 
poir  etse  cadenasse  le  cceur  a  plaisir.  C'est  a  qui 
aura  le  visage  le  plus  pale  et  dira  le  mieux  je  suis 
blase1,  blase."  ( Corr. ,  i,  p.  48. ) 

The  change  of  attitude  toward  Byron  is  more 
marked  when  in  1845  he  contrasts  Shakespeare's 
calm  with  Byron's  sensibility,  and  a  letter  of  1846 
throws  in  still  clearer  relief  the  fact  that  his  artis- 
tic ideals  are  no  longer  in  sympathy  with  Byron 
but  lean  strongly  toward  Shakespeare  as  he  sees 
him  : 

"Car  il  y  a  deux  classes  de  poetes;  les  plus 
grands,  les  rares,  les  vrais  maitres  resument  1'hu- 
manite",  sans  se  pre"occuper  ni  d'eux  monies,  ni  de 
leurs  propres  passions  ;  mettant  au  rebut  leur  per- 
sonnalite"  pour  s' absorber  dans  celle  des  autres,  ils 
reproduisent  I'linivers  qui  se  reflete  dans  leurs 
ceuvres  .  .  .;  il  y  en  a  d' autres  qui  n'ont  qu'a 
cre"er  pour  e"tre  harmonieux,  qu'a  pleurer  pour 
atteudrir  et  qu'a  s'occuper  d'eux-mcmes  pour 
rester  6ternels  .  .  .  Byron  e"tait  de  cette  famille  ; 
Shakespeare  de  1'autre,  qu'est  ce  qui  me  dira  en 
effet  ce  que  Shakespeare  a  aime",  ce  qu'il  a  trahi, 


ce  qu'il  a  senti  ?     C'est  un  colosse  qui  e"pouvante ; 
on  a  peine  a  croire  que  c'est  un  hornme. " 

Speaking  of  types  of  poetic  aspiration,  he  adds  : 

"d' autres  fois  on  a  la  vanite  de  croire  qu'il 
suffit,  comine  Montaigne  et  Byron,  de  dire  ce 
que  Ton  pense  et  ce  que  1'ou  sent  pour  cre"er  de 
belles  choses. ' '  (  Corr. ,  i,  p.  269. ) 

In  chapter  xxvn  of  the  Education  sentimeniale 
of  1845  (CE.  deJ.,  in),  the  whole  of  which  is 
important  for  the  development  of  Flaubert's 
mature  theory  of  art,  he  himself  brings  out  clearly 
what  his  literary  conception  of  the  romantic 
school  had  been  and  the  process  by  which  the 
change  in  it  was  wrought. 

It  is  the  inner  history  of  Jules — that  is,  of  the 
author  himself — after  his  abortive  first  love,  when 
with  riper  judgment  he  turns  to  consider  the  world 
about  him,  that  is  exposed  in  the  following  pas- 
sages : 

"Le  monde  6tant  devenu  pour  lui  si  large  a 
contempler,  il  vit  qu'il  n'y  avait,  quant  a  1'art, 
rien  en  dehors  de  ses  limites,  ni  realite"  ni  possi- 
bilite"  d'etre.  C'est  pourquoi  le  fantastique  qui 
semblait  autrefois  un  si  vaste  royaume  du  conti- 
nent poe"tique,  ne  lui  en  apparut  plus  que  comme 
une  province  .  .  .  D'abord  il  (the  supernatural) 
delate  dans  1'Iude  .  .  . ;  il  s' humanise  dans  la 
Grdce,  passe  dans  1'art  romain  .  .  .,  devient  ter- 
rible au  moyeu  age,  grotesque  a  la  Renaissance  et 
se  mele  enfin  au  vertige  de  la  pense'e  dans  les  &mes 
de  Faust  et  de  Manfred  .  .  .  Redevenu  calme, 
1'homme  ne  se  comprend  plus  lui-me'me  :  son 
propre  esprit  lui  fait  peur  et  il  s'epouvante  de  ses 
rfives,  il  se  demande  pourquoi  il  a  cr^e"  des  djiuns, 
des  vampires  ;  ou  est-ce  qu'il  voulait  aller  sur  le 
dos  des  griffons,  dans  quelle  fi6vre  de  la  chair  il  a 
mis  des  ailes  au  phallus  et  dans  quelle  heure 
d'angoisse  il  a  r6v6  1'enfer  .  .  .  Alors  il  s'eprit 
d'un  immense  amour  pour  ces  quelques  hommes 
au-dessus  des  plus  grands,  plus  forts  que  les  plus 
forts,  chez  lesquels  1'infini  s'est  mire  comme  se 
mire  le  ciel  dans  la  mer  ...  Ils  auraient  pu  con- 
ter  leurs  douleurs  au  monde  et  1'amuser  du  spec- 
tacle de  leur  coeur  ;  mais  non  !  ils  accomplissaient 
leur  t&che  avec  une  obstiuation  divine  .  .  .  Ho- 
m£re  et  Shakespeare  ont  compris  dans  leur  cercle 
F humanite"  et  la  nature.  Tout  rhomme  ancien 
est  dans  le  premier,  1'homme  moderne  dans  le 
second  .  .  .  Mais  ce  qui  le  charmait  surtout  chez 
ces  pdres  de  1'art  c'est  la  reunion  de  la  passion  et 
de  la  combinaison  ;  les  poetes  les  plus  exclusifs, 
les  plus  personnels  out  eu  moins  de  chaleur,  de 
vitality  et  mSme  de  naivete  dans  Pexposition  du 
seul  sentiment  qui  faisait  leur  grandeur  que  ceux- 


146 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES, 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


la  n'en  ont  montrS  dans  les  sentiments  varies 
qu'ils  ont  reproduits  .  .  .  II  conclutde  la  que  1' in- 
spiration ne  doit  relever  que  d'elle  seule,  que  les 
excitations  exterieures  trop  souvent  Paffaiblissent 
ou  la  denaturent— qu'  ainsi  il  faut  e^re  a  jeuu  pour 
chanter  la  bouteille  et  nullement  en  colere  pour 
peindre  les  fureurs  d'  Ajax. "  (  (E.  de  J. ,  m,  pp. 
263,  265,  266,  267,  passim. ) 

Can  a  man  state  more  clearly  in  the  form  of 
fiction  what  have  been  and  what  are  his  theories 
of  literary  art?  Here  while  still  appreciating 
their  role  in  the  evolution  of  art,  he  explains  why 
he  parted  company  with  the  fantastic,  the  super- 
natural, the  grotesque— of  which  Manfred  is  cited 
as  a  type — that  riots  in  Smarh,  in  Reve  d'  Enfer, 
in  Quidquid  Volueris.  Here  he  reveals  the  kind 
of  sources  to  which  he  turned  for  inspiration  when 
those  of  an  early  day  no  longer  satisfied.  Here 
he  declares  what  trait  it  was  of  the  men  to  whom 
he  turned  that  did  satisfy  the  need  of  his  nature 
in  its  evolution.  What  is  still  more,  he  names 
here  the  poets  in  whose  works  he  found  that  objec- 
tivity, that  universality  which  alone  now  com- 
manded his  adherence  and  his  deepest  admiration. 
This  is  stated  very  precisely  by  another  passage  in 
this  same  chapter  : 

"  Done  il  s'adonna  a  I'&uded'ouvrages  offrant 
des  caracteres  difierents  du  sien,  une  maniere  de 
sentir  e"carte  de  la  sienne  .  .  .  Ce  qu'il  aimait  a 
trouver  c'etait  le  developpement  d'une  personnali- 
te  fe"conde,  1' expansion  d'un  sentiment  puissant 
...  Or  il  se  dit  que  cette  facon  toute  subjective, 
si  grandiose  parfois,  pourrait  bien  £tre  fausse 
parce  qu'elle  est  monotone,  etroite,  parce  qu'elle 
est  incomplete,  et  il  rechercha  aussitot  la  varie"te 
des  tons,  la  multiplicite  des  lignes  et  des  formes, 
leur  difference  de  derail,  leur  harmonic  d' en- 
semble." ((E.  de  J.,  m,  p.  256.) 

How  Byron's  figure  grew  dimmer  among  Flau- 
bert's literary  divinities  and  how  Shakespeare 
came  to  take  a  high  place  in  the  temple  is  mani- 
fest in  these  passages,  but  the  reader  wonders  how 
it  was  that  even  in  the  author's  extreme  youth, 
when  Byron  and  other  writers  of  the  type  domi- 
nated his  literary  expression,  the  taste  for  Shake- 
speare also  manifested  itself.  Two  reasons  pre- 
sent themselves.  The  first  is  that  a  great  enthu- 
siasm for  the  drama  and  for  history,  manifest  from 
the  first  writings  of  the  young  Flaubert,  both  in 
his  earliest  letters  and  in  various  historical  tales 


now  accessible  in  Conard's  edition,  predisposed 
him  to  a  fondness  for  the  English  dramatist.  The 
other  and  possibly  more  important  is  that  at  first 
he  read  Shakespeare  as  one  of  the  great  romantics. 
He  must  have  found  in  Othello  the  passion,  the 
glimpses  of  strange  lands  and  unfamiliar  life,  the 
scenes  of  horror  and  death  that  fascinated  him  at 
that  period  ;  Hamlet  and  Romeo  and  Juliet  were 
among  "les  ouvrages  les  plus  brulants"  read  by 
the  hero  of  Memoires  d'unfou  (1838).  Later, 
when  his  own  nature  began  to  assert  itself  more 
vigorously,  he  found  himself  hampered,  con- 
strained, by  the  personality  of  the  poet  himself 
ever  present  in  Byron's  poetry.  Flaubert  was 
by  temperament  too  individual,  too  self-assertive 
to  endure  this.  He  began  to  meditate  more  deeply 
on  the  men  from  whose  works  he  had  drawn  in- 
spiration ;  he  began  to  see  in  Shakespeare  that 
impassibility,  that  impersonality  which  became 
his  own  artistic  ideal  even  before  the  genesis  of 
Mme.  Bovary.  The  decline  of  Byron  and  the 
rise  of  Shakespeare  in  his  esteem  do  not  form  of 
course  the  whole  cause  why  Flaubert  the  romantic 
became  Flaubert  the  realist,  but  they  do  act  as 
index  fingers  in  the  process,  and  are  thus  not 
without  interest. 

A.  COLEMAN. 
The  Johns  Hopkins  University. 


TWO  PARALLELS  TO  GREENE  AND 
LODGE'S  LOOKING-GLASS 

A  Looking- Glass  for  London  and  England,  a 
play  published  in  1594  with  the  names  of  Thomas 
Lodge  and  Robert  Greene  on  its  title  page,  and 
mentioned  by  Henslowe  in  1591,  has  occasioned 
much  discussion  as  to  its  date  of  composition  and 
the  authorship  of  particular  scenes.  In  the  most 
recent  edition  of  Greene's  plays,  that  of  Professor 
T.  H.  Dickinson  in  the  Mermaid  Series,  the  argu- 
ments of  the  late  Churton  Collins  for  dating  the 
play  as  late  as  1590  are  scouted,  but  Mr.  Dickin- 
son follows  the  order  of  plays  as  given  by  Collins, 
placing  the  Looking- Glass  before  Orlando  Furioso, 
which  is  certainly  one  of  Greene's  earliest  and 
crudest  dramas.  Indeed,  Professor  Dickinson 
leans  to  the  opinion  expressed  by  Professor  Gay- 


May,  1911. J 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


147 


ley  that  the  Looking- Glass  was  presented  on  the 
stage  "appreciably  before  March  29,  1588,"  * 
when  Greene's  Perimedea  was  licensed,  though  he 
fails  to  accept  Professor  Gayley's  interpretation  of 
the  words  used  in  Perimedes.  My  own  opinion  is 
that  the  Looking- Gloss  must  be  dated  after  Mar- 
lowe's Dr.  Faustus,  i.  e.,  between  1589  and  1591. 
In  this  connection  I  wish  to  point  out  two  seem- 
ingly unnoted  parallels  to  passages  in  the  comic 
scenes  of  the  Looking-  Gloss,  both  of  which  paral- 
lels point  to  a  late  composition. 

In  Act  IV,  Scene  4,1  "one  clad  in  Devil's 
attire,"  in  order  to  frighten  Adam,  the  clown  of 
the  play,  comes  upon  him  and  declares  himself  the 
spirit  of  a  man  slain  in  Adam's  company  shortly 
before.  He  then  proposes  to  carry  the  clown  on  his 
back  to  hell.  But  Adam  keeps  his  wits  admir- 
ably, even  offering  his  offices  as  a  smith  to  shoe 
the  spirit.  Thus  taking  the  devil  off  his  guard, 
he  is  able  to  cudgel  him  soundly,  and  the  devil 
runs  off  the  stage  shouting,  "Thou  killest  me, 
thou  killest  me  !  " 

Adam's  comment,  the  final  speech  of  the  scene, 
is  close  akin  in  words  and  spirit  to  a  speech  of  the 
Clown  in  the  Faustus,  Scene  4,  where  Wagner  has 
threatened  to  call  up  two  devils  and  fetch  this 
clown  away.  The  two  speeches  follow  : 

Looking -Gloss 

"Adam.  Then  may  I  count  myself,  I  think,  a 
tall  man,  that  am  able  to  kill  a  devil.  Now  who 
dare  deal  with  me  in  the  parish  ?  or  what  wench 
in  Nineveh  will  not  love  me,  when  they  say, f  There 
goes  he  that  beat  the  devil  1 ' 

Dr.  Faudus 
(ed.  Gollancz,  Temple  Dramatists,  p.  17): 

"Clown.  Let  your  Balio  and  your  Belcher 
come  here,  and  I'll  knock  them,  they  were  never 
so  knocked  since  they  were  devils  :  say  I  should 
kill  one  of  them,  what  would  folks  say  ?  '  Do  ye 
see  yonder  tall  fellow  in  the  round  slop  ?  he  has 
killed  the  devil.'  So  I  should  be  called  Kill-devil 
all  the  parish  over. 

Enter  two  Devils ;  and  the  Clown  runs  up  and 
down  crying. ' ' 

1  Representative  English  Comedies,  p.  406.  Cf.  Dickin- 
son, p.  li,  n. 

*Ed.  Dickinson,  p.  141.  Cf.  Collins,  Plays  and  Poems 
of  Greene,  T,  193. 


The  Looking- Glass  scene  bears  Greene's  ear- 
marks, and  if  there  is  any  borrowing  here,  it  is 
much  more  in  accord  with  what  we  know  of  the 
two  men  to  believe  that  Greene  was  the  imitator 
rather  than  Marlowe.8  Indeed,  as  Collins  sug- 
gests, Rasni  of  the  Looking- Glass  may  well  be 
modelled  on  Tamburlaine,  and  "  it  is  difficult  not 
to  suppose"  that  Act  V,  Scene  2,  is  a  reminiscence 
of  the  final  scene  in  the  Fawttus.' 

Now  for  the  second  parallel.  The  last  time 
Adam  appears,  Act  V,  Scene  4,  a  fast  has  been 
proclaimed  throughout  Nineveh  as  a  result  of 
Jonah's  preaching,  and  the  King  has  sent  out 
"searchers"  to  see  that  none  break  the  fast. 
However,  Adam  declares,  "  I  could  prettily  so-so 
away  with  praying;  but  for  fasting,  why,  'tis  so 
contrary  to  my  nature,  that  I  would  rather  suffer 
a  short  hanging  than  a  long  fasting."  Then  he 
adds,  "And  yet,  in  faith,  I  need  not  find  fault 
with  the  proclamation,  for  I  have  a  buttery  and 
a  pantry  and  a  kitchen  about  me."  From  the 
pockets  of  his  slops,  or  wide  breeches,  he  draws 
bread,  beef,  and  a  bottle  of  beer,  with  which  he 
will  "make  shift  to  wear  out  this  fasting." 

At  that  moment  two  searchers  enter,  and  Adam 
conceals  the  contraband  articles.  One  searcher 
declares  the  fast  to  be  observed  faithfully  by  the 
whole  city  ;  the  other  one  spies  Adam.  "Here 
sits  one,  methinks,  at  his  prayers  ;  let  us  see  who 
it  is."  They  recognize  him,  and  he  requests, 
"  Trouble  me  not  ;  '  thou  shalt  take  no  manner 
of  food,  but  fast  and  pray.' '  The  First  Searcher 
observes,  "How  devoutly  he  sits  at  his  orisons  !" 
But  just  then  a  suspicious  odor  is  caught.  De- 
spite Adam's  protest  that  he  be  not  hindered  of 
his  prayer,  they  search  him  and  find  the  food 
and  drink.  He  is  threatened  with  hanging,  but 
bears  this  with  equanimity  on  learning  that  there 
are  five  more  days  to  fast.  Yet  he  will  not  be 
hanged,  he  announces,  with  an  empty  stomach, 
and  so  he  proceeds  to  eat  up  his  meat.  And  the 
searchers  take  him  away. 

Now  what  seems  to  me  to  have  been  the  prob- 

s  Of  course,  another  possibility  is  that  Marlowe  did  not 
compose  the  Fauslus  scene,  but  the  discussion  of  that 
question  would  take  us  far  afield. 

4  Collins,  op.  cii.,  I,  139.  It  is  proper  to  state  that  I 
discovered  this  remark  of  Collins  after  most  of  my  paper 
was  written.  But  it  only  strengthens  my  case. 


148 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


able  inspiration  of  this  scene  is  an  episode  related 
in  The  Famous  Historie  of  Fryer  Bacon,  the 
acknowledged  source  of  another  of  Greene's 
dramas,  the  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay. 
But  this  particular  incident  is  not  used  by 
Greene  in  that  play.  It  is  entitled,  How  Fryer 
Bacon  deceived  his  Man,  that  would  fast  for  his 
conscience  sake,  and  reads  as  follows 5: 

' '  Fryer  Bacon  had  one  onely  man  to  attend  on 
him  and  he  too  was  none  of  the  wisest,  for  he  kept 
him  in  charity,  more  then  for  any  service  he  had 
of  him.  This  man  of  his  (named  Miles)  never 
could  indure  to  fast  as  other  religious  persons  did, 
for  alwayes  hee  had  in  one  corner,  or  another, 
flesh  which  hee  would  eate  when  his  maister  eat 
bread  only,  or  else  did  fast  and  abstaiue  from  all 
things.  Fryer  Bacon  seeing  this,  thought  at  one 
time  or  other  to  be  even  with  him,  which  he  did 
one  Fryday  in  this  manner.  Miles  on  the  Thurs- 
day night  had  provided  a  great  blacke-pudding 
for  his  Frydayes  fast  :  this  pudding  put  he  in  his 
pocket  (thinking  belike  to  heate  it  so,  for  his  mais- 
ter had  no  fire  on  those  dayes)  on  the  next  day, 
who  was  so  demure  as  Miles,  hee  looked  as  though 
hee  would  not  have  eat  anything  :  when  his  mais- 
ter offerd  him  some  bread,  hee  refused  it,  saying 
his  sinnes  deserved  a  greater  penance  then  one 
dayes  fast  in  a  Mhole  weeke  :  his  maister  com- 
mended him  for  it,  and  bid  him  take  heed  that  he 
did  not  dissemble  :  for  if  he  did,  it  would  at  last 
be  knowne  ;  then  were  I  worse  then  a  Turke  said 
Miles  :  so  went  he  forth  as  if  he  would  have  gone 
to  pray  privately,  but  it  was  for  nothing  but  to 
prey  upon  his  blacke  pudding  ;  that  pulled  he  out 
(for  it  was  halfe  roasted  with  the  heate)  and  fell 
to  it  lustily  ;  but  he  was  deceived,  for  having  put 
one  end  in  his  mouth,  he  could  neither  get  it  out 
againe  nor  bite  it  off,  so  that  hee  stamped  out  for 
helpe  :  his  maister  hearing  him,  came  ;  and  find- 
ing him  in  that  manner,  tooke  hold  of  the  other 
end  of  the  pudding,  and  led  him  to  the  hall,  and 
shewed  him  to  all  the  schollers,  saying  :  see  here 
my  good  friends  and  fellow  students  what  a  devout 
man  my  servant  Miles  is,  he  loveth  not  to  break  a 
fast  day,  witnesse  this  pudding  that  his  conscience 
will  not  let  him  swallow  :  I  will  have  him  to  be 
an  example  for  you  all,  then  tyed  hee  him  to  a 
window  by  the  end  of  the  pudding,  where  poore 
Miles  stood  like  a  beare  tyed  by  the  nose  to  a 
stake,  and  indured  many  floutes  and  mockes  :  at 
night  his  maister  released  him  from  his  penance  ; 
Miles  was  glad  of  it,  and  did  vow  never  to  breake 
more  fast  dayes  whilst  that  he  lived. ' ' 

6  The  text  followed  is  that  of  the  reprint  of  the  "  His- 
torie "  in  Thorns' s  Early  English  Prose  Romances,  Revised 
edition,  Early  Novelists  Series,  pp.  291-2. 


The  resemblances  between  these  two  accounts 
seem  to  me  more  than  conventional.  The  specific 
allusions  to  the  clown's  devoutness  and  his  pre- 
tended prayers  in  each  case  ;  his  place  of  conceal- 
ment, referred  to  by  one  writer  as  a  kitchen,  by 
the  other  as  a  place  of  heat  ;  the  similarity  of 
characters  and  situations,  though  the  localization 
and  the  denouement  of  necessity  differ — all  these 
will  be  noted.  But  the  strongest  argument  that 
Greene  knew  this  story  when  he  wrote  his  scene 
is  that  he  used  the  same  book  as  the  source  of 
another  play. 

No  one  now  doubts  that  the  Friar  Bacon  and 
Friar  Bungay  was  composed  soon  after  the  ap- 
pearance on  the  stage  of  Dr.  Faustus  and  under 
the  influence  of  that  popular  tragedy.  Professor 
Dickinson  expresses  agreement  with  Collins  that 
"'the  presumption  in  favor  of  Faustus  having  pre- 
ceded Greene's  play  is  so  overwhelmingly  strong 
that  we  cannot  suppose  that  Marlowe  borrowed 
from  Greene. ' ' 6  That  Greene  composed  the  two 
scenes  in  The  Loo  king -Glass  not  far  from  the 
time  that  he  wrote  Friar  Bacon  is  the  conclusion 
I  would  draw  from  the  parallels  cited. 


ROBERT  ADGER  LAW. 


University  of  Texas. 


La  Mule  sanz  Frain.  An  Arthurian  Romance 
by  Paiens  de  Maisieres,  edited  with  Intro- 
duction, Notes  and  Glossary  by  RAYMOND 
THOMPSON  HILL.  Yale  University  Disser- 
tation. Baltimore,  J.  H.  Furst  Co.,  1911. 
69  pp. 

The  episodic  poem  of  the  Mule  sans  Frein, 
which  Mr.  W.  P.  Ker  has  recently  described  as 
"  one  of  the  best  of  the  shorter  [Arthurian] 
stories," *  is  a  tale  whose  main  object  is  to 
express  a  boundless  admiration  for  the  prowess 
of  My  Lord  Gawain.  The  seneschal  Kai  is 
the  first  to  attempt  the  quest  of  the  missing 
bridle,  but  his  failure  is  almost  too  abject  to 

6  Dickinson,  p.  xxxviii. 

1  The  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature  I, 
p.  380. 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


149 


have  the  full  force  intended.  Gawain,  moved 
by  courtesy  to  the  damsel,  affronts  successfully 
all  the  perils  of  the  quest,  exhibiting  thruout 
an  incredible  indifference  to  danger.  As  a 
crowning  hardihood,  with  his  head  upon  the 
block  and  the  ax  about  to  fall,  Gawain  utters 
a  careless  jest  about  the  shortness  of  his  neck. 

The  author,  Paiens  de  Mezieres,  is  otherwise 
unknown.  I  may  remark  that  there  are  some 
indications  of  clerical  connection  on  his  part: 
he  points  out  the  senefiance  of  some  incidents 
(370,  1015),  he  puns  on  the  name  of  St. 
Pantelion  (666),  and  quotes  a  biblical  phrase 
almost  verbatim  (1032-3)  :  illuminare  his  qui 
in  tenebris  sedent  (Luke  I,  79).  It  is  perhaps 
significant  in  the  same  direction  that  the  full 
reward  promised  Kai  by  the  damsel  (107),  if 
it  is  claimed  at  all  by  Gawain  (there  are  hints 
at  1083-4),  is  not  only  not  dwelt  upon  by  the 
poet,  but  is  finally  left  in  uncertainty. 

All  students  of  the  "  matter  of  Britain  "  will 
welcome  Mr.  Hill's  new  edition  of  the  text, 
which  rests  upon  his  own  copy  of  the  Berne 
manuscript;  he  has  studied  separately  the  lan- 
guage of  the  author  and  that  of  the  copyist, 
and  adds  a  complete  glossary.  As  to  the  home 
of  the  author,  Mezieres  in  the  Ardennes  seems 
to  Mr.  Hill  to  lie  too  far  to  the  north;  he 
inclines  to  a  Maisieres  "  situated  near  the  west- 
ern boundary  of  the  department  of  Aube." 
The  problem  is  interesting  and  important,  and 
deserves  a  careful  examination.  The  presump- 
tion is,  of  course,  that  the  place  meant  would 
be  the  most  important  town  of  that  name.  Is 
Mezieres  (Ardennes)  certainly  excluded? 

While  the  linguistic  evidence  is  scanty,  we 
have  three  peculiar  rimes ;  namely,  puet :  vuet 
*VOLET  491;  forest  :  recet  360;  dame  :  jame 
(Fr.  jambe)  151.  As  to  the  first  of  these 
rimes,2  we  find  with  the  aid  of  Haas,  Zur 
Geschichte  des  L  vor  folgenden  consonanten, 
1889,  that  the  extrusion  of  I  in  vuelt,  suelt, 
duels,  muelt,  uelt,  is  not  proper  to  Picardy 
(vieut),  nor  to  Francian  (veut),  nor  to  the 
Orleanais  or  southern  Champagne  (viaut) ; 
it  is  found  in  the  Walloon  region,  and  to  some 

2  The  rime  muet  :  suet  441  does  not  count  here, 
for  muet  is  Lat.  MOLIT,  not  MOVET,  and  the  glossary 
should  be  corrected.  Cp.  melt  in  Diu  Krdne,  12965. 


extent  in  Lorraine  and  Franche  Comt6.  The 
contemporary  Poeme  morale,  from  the  region 
of  Liege,  has  the  rime  puet  :  vuet  (str.  78, 
336,  436)  as  has  also  the  later  Richart  le  Bel 
(1461,  2847;  4133)  which  Foerster  ascribes 
to  the  department  of  the  Ardennes.  As  to  rimes 
of  the  second  type,  they  also  are  frequent  in 
Richart  le  Bel,  and  in  the  closely  related  Blan- 
candin;  the  latter  poem  in  fact  has  this  identical 
rime  and  spelling,  forest  :  recest  5987  (see 
Foerster's  Introd.  p.  xii) ;  so  in  Richart,  voit  : 
conoist,  fait  :  plaist,  etc.  As  to  the  collateral 
form  jame,  G.  Paris  long  ago  declared  that  it 
is  not  Francian  (Romania  xm,  445).  Its 
appearance  in  Chrestien  de  Troyes,  Eustebuef 
and  E.  Deschamps  (vm,  114)  would  at  first 
sight  seem  to  localize  it  in  Champagne,  but 
the  Atlas  linguistique  reveals  the  fact  that  the 
pronunciation  jam  (and  jem)  is  most  frequent 
in  the  extreme  north  (Pas-de-Calais,  Somme) ; 
there  are  also  localities  in  Aisne  and  Marne 
which  have  preserved  jame  for  jambe  (see  for 
example,  the  text  from  the  neighborhood  of 
Sainte-Menehould  reprinted  by  Herzog,  Neu- 
franzosische  DialeTcttexte,  p.  12 :  si  vos  jammes 
s'an  allont,  la  m'rrtoire  e  toujou  bonne.) 

Mr.  Hill  relies  somewhat  upon  the  supposed 
non-reduction  of  -iee  to  -ie,  but  this  is  by  no 
means  proven  by  the  rime  at  307.  The  Fran- 
cian features  of  the  language  are  to  be  ex- 
plained as  an  effort  to  use  the  idiom  of  the 
courts,  a  custom  which  appears  as  early  as 
the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  according  to 
P.  Meyer,  Roman  de  I'Escoufle,  Introd.  p. 
xliv.  Not  as  an  argument  but  as  a  matter 
of  interest  1  note  that  Blancandin,  written  in 
the  Ardennes  region,  is  a  hero  copied  after 
Gawain ;  also  that  the  vallee  envenimee  traversed 
by  the  knights  in  their  quest  remincls  one 
strongly  of  the  desert  of  Ardennes  as  described 
in  Partonopeus  de  Blois,  5831  ff. 

As  is  well  known,  the  texts  as  written  by 
the  copyist  of  the  Berne  manuscript,  who  was 
apparently  a  Champenois,3  are  not  very  trust- 
worthy;  when  all  is  said,  not  a  few  passages 

•Tarbe1,  Patois  de  Champagne,  I,  p.  Ixxiii,  states 
that  the  county  of  Rethel  (S.  W.  of  Mezieres)  was 
once  a  dependency  of  the  counts  of  Champagne. 
Has  the  fact  any  importance  in  this  connection? 


150 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


must  remain  more  or  less  unsatisfactory.  I 
make  the  following  suggestions  toward  the  im- 
provement of  the  text. 

2  puis,  read  plus.  The  confusion  is  frequent 
because  the  abbreviation  for  Lat.  POST  and  Fr. 
plus  differed  chiefly  in  the  presence  of  I  in 
the  latter. — 7  E  chose,  and  no  comma. — 78 
n'aurai  instead  of  the  usual  n'avrai  is  ultra- 
conservative,  while  on  the  other  hand  r'auroie 
(82)  is  an  innovation  that  few  will  approve 
(why  not  then  r'estoient  26,  r'atorner  387?) — 
178  the  line  is  too  long;  omit  il. — 232  remove 
the  period. — 300,  656  The  hiatus  is  not  indica- 
ted nor  is  mention  made  of  these  cases  in  the 
section  on  versification. — 335  que  li,  or  qu'il  li, 
seems  called  for. — 362  Ms.  vet,  but  vont  is 
required. — 438  .G.  ne  vost  mie  laissier.  The 
line  is  evidently  corrupt.  Perhaps: 

Gauvains  ne  voit  mie  d'uissier, 
Ne  huis  ne  porte  n'i  avoit. 

483  Correct  to  veignanz  and  lanz. — 509  The  au- 
thor's rime  was  very  probably  fus:  Martians 
MARCELLUS. — 518  aprestez  is  no  doubt  an  error 
for  arestez. — 524  The  correction  to  hardiz  is 
possible,  even  tho  this  construction  is  usually 
restricted  to  reflexive  verbs.  Parallels  in  Pro- 
vengal  are  given  by  Stimming,  Bertran  de  Born, 
p.  230 — 532  esmaies.  The  note  is  uncalled  for, 
as  this  is  not  a  subjunctive. — 559  enz  en. — 573 
mon  bon  oste  is  possibly  an  error  of  the  MS.  for 
mou(t)  bon  oste. — 584  renderai,  defended  by 
Mr.  Hill,  is  very  doubtful  in  view  of  rendrai 
533,  prendrai  571. — 599  L'endemain. — 623 
Lesse  col  venir  a  plente.  Here  Lesse  is  either 
Lai  ce,  or  else  it  stands  for  Lessel  =  Laisse  le; 
venir  to  me  has  less  point  than  veoir  or  ve'ir, 
the  latter  quite  admissible  from  the  point  of 
view  of  dialect.  In  Diu  Krone  there  is  unfor- 
tunately nothing  corresponding  to  Gawain's 
jest. — 649  This  line  need  not  be  divided  from 
the  preceding. — 688-9  present  an  interesting 
problem : 

Certes  qui  o  lui  se  combat 
D'escremir  li  convient  savoir. 

One  would  expect  either  savoir  escremir,  as 
Oxford  Folie  Tristan  516,  or  else  savoir  d'es- 
cremie,  as  Erec  933,  Yvain  5621;  with  the 


latter  construction  we  may  compare  Dolopaihos, 
p.  235 :  Qui  ambler  vuelt  autrui  avoir,  De 
barat  li  covient  savoir.  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
the  original  reading  was: 

Certes  cui  o  lui  se  combat 
D'escremie  covient  savoir, 

where  cui  is  attracted  into  the  oblique  case  by 
being  made  the  object  of  the  principal  clause; 
cp.  plaisent  cui  ne  s'en  appresse,  Rose  19508, 
and  other  examples  cited  by  Tobler,  Beitrdge, 
i,  p.  202  top. — 702  for  Gil  li  a  read  Si  li  a,  and 
cp.  the  opposite  confusion  in  the  Berne  Folie 
Tristan  326,  as  corrected  by  Tobler. — 711  The 

lion 

li  revient  comme  tempeste 
Si  lo  refiert  parmi  la  teste 
De  sa  coe.  .  .  . 

So  in  Diu  Krone  13262:  Und  sluoc  in  vorn 
mit  dem  zagel.  A  dragon  might  properly  fight 
with  his  tail,  but  would  a  lion?  Did  the 
archetype  have  poe  instead  of  coe?  The  second 
lion,  a  few  lines  below,  strikes  with  his  claws 
as  we  should  expect. — 765  The  knight's  words 
end  with  this  line;  what  follows  belongs  to 
Gawain : 

Des  qu'autrement  estre  ne  puet, 
Ja,  ce  dit,  nel  contredira. 

800  faudre.  Godefroy's  explanation  adopted 
by  Mr.  Hill  is  hardly  admissible:  read  fautre 
as  the  rime  requires,  and  for  a  possible  explana- 
tion of  tot  sanz  fautre  see  the  passage  quoted 
in  Modern  Philology  i,  p.  395. — 820  The  quit  a 
of  the  MS.  is  to  be  taken  as  qui'il  I'a,  detrier 
being  transitive. — 826  Et  lo  vassal,  a  lui  lou 
serre.  Lou  in  apposition  with  lo  vassal,  says 
Mr.  Hill,  but  it  would  be  hard  to  parallel 
so  awkward  a  sentence.  Has  an  initial  abbrevi- 
ation been-  solved  incorrectly?  Probably  we 
should  read 

Par  lo  nasal  a  lui  lo  serre. 

Cp.  Le  roi  a  pris  par  le  nasal  (  :  cheval)  Richart 
le  Bel  4933,  and  numerous  other  parallels. — 
836  The  idiom  monter  a  pris,  which  occurs 
here,  is  similar  to  the  expressions  avoir  a  pris, 
prendre  a  pris,  0.  Sp.  haber  a  maraviglia  (ML 
in,  §404).  I  take  this  opportunity  to  suggest 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


151 


a  correction  in  the  first  line  of  the  charming 
lyric  printed  by  Mr.  Hill,  Modern  Language 
Notes  xxvi,  39 :  instead  of  Apris  ai  qu'en  chan- 
tant  plour,  read 

A  pris  ai  qu'en  chantant  plour 

that  is,  '  I  consider  it  a  virtue  that,'  etc.  Cp. 
Joufrois  1827:  Car  n'ai  pas  cest  siegle  a  pris, 
( for  I  have  no  high  opinion  of  this  world/ 
So  no  doubt  Perceval,  Baist's  text  3296,  should 
be  similarly  corrected: 

De  tot  ce  se  mer voile  trop 

Li  vaslez,  qui  ne  1'ot  a  pris, 

E   li   prodom   li   dist:    "Amis.  .  .  . 

The  young  man  is  surprised  but  was  not  greatly 
interested.  Avoir  a  mepris  is  met  with  as  late 
as  La  Fontaine  (Haase  §123)*. — 890  an  .II. 
as  printed  is  ambiguous ;  it  is,  of  course,  andeus, 
and  not  en  deus. — 930  El  lit  should  have  been 
restored. — 1020-9  The  passage  is  not.  well 
punctuated ;  the  meaning  is,  '  the  beasts  were 
so  to  be  feared  that,  when  the  people  perad- 
venture  issued  forth  for  some  piece  of  work, 
nothing  remained  but  that,  at  whatever  'cost, 
it  was  necessary  (we  were  compelled)  to  untie 
them,  and  they  would  tear  everybody  to  pieces.' 
—1069  The  difficulty  might  be  met  by  reading 
La  damoisele  quant  ooit,  but  Mr.  Hill's  reading 
may  be  correct,  cp.  Richart  le  Bel  5837  where  oit 
AUDIT  is  likewise  assured  by  the  rime. 


T.  ATKINSON  JENKINS. 


University  of  Chicago. 


The  Stage  Cyclopaedia:  A  Bibliography  of  Plays 
Compiled  by  Reginald  Clarence.  Published 
by  "  The  Stage,"  Covent  Garden,  London, 
1909.  499  double-column  pages. 

This  is  a  work  of  such  peculiar  interest 
and  significance  to  the  student  of  the  theatre 

4  In  iii,  4  of  the  same  poem  s'en  troblie  is  no 
doubt  a  misprint  for  s'entroblie.  Tn  the  second  lyric 
v,  6  the  period  should  be  replaced  by  a  comma,  the 
two  lines  5,  6  forming  a  protasis. 


and  the  drama  that  it  is  cause  for  surprise 
that  it  has  been  so  rarely  or  so  inadequately 
mentioned.  Aside  from  a  brief  but  scholarly 
review  by  Dr.  Jos.  E.  Gillet  in  the  Bulletin 
Bibliographique  et  Pedagogique  du  Musee 
Beige  for  December  15,  1910,  it  has  not  re- 
ceived the  attention  it  deserves. 

This  valuable  addition  to  the  dramatic  stu- 
dent's work-shop  is  "  an  Alphabetical  List  of 
Plays  and  other  Stage  Pieces  of  which  any 
record  can  be  found  since  the  commencement 
of  the  English  Stage,  together  with  Descrip- 
tions, Author's  Names,  Dates  and  Places  of 
Production,  and  other  Useful  Information, 
comprising  in  all  nearly  50,000  Plays,  and  ex- 
tending over  a  period  of  upwards  of  500 
years."  It  should  be  mentioned,  however,  that 
unless  Classical  sources,  titles  of  plays  from 
which  translations  or  adaptations  have  been 
made,  under-titles,  etc.,  are  counted,  this  esti- 
mate of  50,000  plays  is  rather  high,  as  the 
main  titles  average  about  sixty  to  the  page. 
Even  so,  when  we  recall  that  Kirkman's  list 
of  plays  compiled  during  the  period  of  the  Com- 
monwealth contained  only  690  titles,  and  Bar- 
ker's list  printed  in  1814  included  the  names  of 
65,000  pieces,  we  may  get  an  idea  of  the 
immense  scope  of  The  Stage  Cyclopaedia.  It 
comprises  no  less  than  forty  varieties  of  stage 
entertainments,  ranging  from  the  interlude, 
burlesque,  extravaganza,  cantata,  etc.,  to  the 
full  opera,  comedy,  and  tragedy,  and  records 
many  times  more  separate  titles  than  all  of 
the  compilations  taken  together  from  Kirk- 
man  to  Barker,  including  those  of  Rogers  and 
Ley  (1656), -Archer  (1656),  Phillips  (1675), 
Langbaine  (1691),  Gildon  (1699),  Mears 
(1714),  Giles  Jacobs  (1723),  Whincop  (or, 
rather,  Mottley?  1747),  Egerton  (1788),  and 
the  editors  of  the  Biographia  Dramatica, — 
Baker,  Reed,  and  Jones.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  great  mass  of  stage  plays  in  England  come 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  it  is  not  fair 
to  Barker  and  his  pioneer  forebears  to  make 
such  a  comparison:  they  cannot  be  held  re- 
sponsible for  omitting  what,  in  their  time, 
did  not  exist.  But  from  Mr.  Clarence's  Pre- 
face we  are  led  to  believe  that,  after  1814, 
he  and  his  co-workers  for  the  past  twenty  years 


152 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


have  had  to  rely  entirely  upon  their  own 
individual  efforts  in  compiling  this  tremendous 
bulk  of  titles, — credit  of  course,  being  given 
to  the  600,000  play-bills  in  the  British  Museum. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  some  of  the  most  valuable 
bibliographies  of  plays  fall  within  the  period 
since  1814.  But  the  editor  of  the  Stage 
Cyclopaedia  wholly  ignores  Oulton's  excellent 
three-volume  History  of  the  Theatres  of  Lon- 
don (1818),  the  numerous  work  of  Halliwell- 
Phillips,  Hazlitt,  Fleay,  Greg,  and  Davenport- 
Adams,  not  to  mention  various  university 
publications  and  minor  bibliographies.  It  is 
not  conceivable  that  Mr.  Clarence  knew  nothing 
of  these,  though  from  some  of  the  strange  slips 
and  omissions  in  his  book  it  is  clear  that  in 
some  instances  at  least  they  were  not  consulted. 
Of  the  errors, — and  errors  in  a  work  of  such 
magnitude  are  inevitable,  towards  which  we 
must  be  charitable  to  a  great  degree, — there 
are  two  kinds,  those  of  omission  and  those  of 
commission.  Taking  titles  at  random,  I  soon 
discovered  mistakes  of  varying  degrees  of 
gravity.  Doubtless  such  slips  as  Mrs.  Alfred 
Behn  for  Mrs.  Aphra  (or,  Aphara)  Behn, 
Charlotte  Clarke  for  Charke  (Colley  Gibber's 
daughter),  Thompson  for  Thomson  (James), 
Molteux  for  Motteux,  Scarrow  for  Scarron, 
Wincop  for  Whincop,  Etherage  for  Etheredge, 
Sir  Solomon  for  Sir  Salomon  (by|  John  Caryl 
and  not  L.  Caryl),  etc.,  are  due  to  careless 
proof-reading.  It  is  to  be  regretted  also  that 
an  up-to-date  knowledge  of  many  of  the  titles 
included  in  the  Stage  Cyclopaedia  was  not 
possessed  by  the  editor.  Mrs.  Behn's  farce 
The  Art  of  Management  (1735),  is  called  a 
drama,  and  is  recorded  as.  having  been  acted. 
Indeed,  there  is  one  source  that  says  it  was 
acted,  but  the  fact  is  very  doubtful;  for  Fleet- 
wood  (manager  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre), 
against  whom  the  satire  was  levelled,  not 
only  influenced  the  Lord  Chamberlain  to  have 
the  little  piece  prohibited,  but  bought  up  all 
the  copies,  as  he  supposed,  when  they  were 
printed,  and  burned  them.  At  least  two  copies 
escaped,  however.  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's 
Maid's  Tragedy  is  stated  to  have  been  originally 
called  The  Bridal;  under  the  latter  title  it  is 
correctly  given  as  an  adaptation  by  Knowles, 


and  produced  by  Macready  in  1837.  The 
Second  Maiden's  Tragedy  (1611)  is  down  as 
"entered  Stationer's  Co.  Apr.  9,  1653."  It 
should  have  been  added  that  it  was  printed 
for  the  first  time  in  1824  (with  numerous 
errors),  and  again  in  1829  by  Tieck  in  the 
Shakespeare  Vorschule.  Since  the  appearance 
of  the  Stage  Cyclopaedia,  The  Second  Maydens 
Tragedy  has  been  correctly  printed  as  the  latest 
addition  to  the  Malone  Society  Reprints. 
Again,  The  Golden  Rump  is  recorded  as 
"  Anon,  not  printed,  not  acted.  Suppressed 
1773."  The  date  of  the  suppression  was  1737, 
as  every  one  knows,  and  though  it  was  neither 
printed  nor  acted,  an  outline  fable  of  this 
satire  appeared  in  Common  Sense  in  1737.  A 
fragment  of  this  political  satire  was  found 
among  Sir  R.  Walpole's  papers  and  passed  into 
the  possession  of  his  youngest  son  Horatio 
(Horace)  Walpole  of  epistolary  fame.  It  was 
currently  understood  at  the  time  that  Field- 
ing was  the  author  of  The  Golden  Rump, 
and  the  sketch  in  Common  Sense — of  which 
Fielding  was  the  chief  editor — bears  numerous 
earmarks  of  the  great  satirist. 

Three  of  Mrs.  Inchbald's  plays  are  entirely 
omitted, — The  Ancient  Law  (not  acted;  prob- 
ably founded  on  Massinger's  Old  Law,  1781), 
The  Massacre  (from  the  French),  never  acted, 
suppressed,  printed  1792,  and  A  Case  of  Con- 
science (1801),  printed  in  Appendix  to  Vol. 
ii  of  Mrs.  Inchbald's  Memoirs.  The  fact  that 
The  Fall  of  Mortimer  (a  continuation  of  Ben 
Jonson's  fragment,  Mortimer's  Fall)  was  acted 
at  the  Hay  market  in  the  summer  of  1751  does 
not  appear;  neither  does  George  Coleman,  the 
Younger's  Night  Gown  and  Slippers  (printed 
as  Broad  Grins),  a  suppressed  Lenten  enter- 
tainment, 1797,  nor  Sheridan's  youthful  Ixion, 
nor  the  play  entitled  Charles  I,  produced  at 
the  Goodman's  Fields  Theatre,  1728-9.  Of 
course  the  editor  could  not  be  blamed  for  not 
printing  the  title  of  the  1828-9  Surrey  Theatre 
pantomime,  AIMATODESTHEATRONAN- 
ATOLIKOMACHE !  But  surely  he  should 
not  have  made  the  mistake  of  saying  that  The 
School  for  Women  Criticised  is  a  translation 
of  I'Ecole  des  femmes  instead  of  La  Critique, 
or  that  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  Theatre  was  built 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


153 


first  in  1672  (cf.  Pepy's  Diary  for  Nov.  20, 
1G60),  nor  forget  the  opera  Rosina  (Covent 
Garden,  1828),  nor  fail  to  inform  us  that 
Verdi's  opera  Louim  Miller  was  an  adaptation 
of  Schiller's  Kdbale  und  Liebe,  nor  completely 
overlook  The  Bride  of  Abydos,  founded  on 
Byron's  poem  of  that  name,  first  produced 
at  Drury  Lane,  February  5,  1818,  and  revived 
at  the  Surrey,  February  12,  1829. 

Under  Gustavus  Vasa  there  are  four  entries. 
That  for  Henry  Brooke  (1739)  is  correct.  The 
one  by  ,W.  Diamond  is  described  as  "  a  play 
founded  on  Hero  of  the  North."  On  the  title- 
page  of  the  printed  play  it  is  called  "  an  his- 
torical opera,"  and  is  so  spoken  of  by  the 
critics.  Mr.  Clarence  gives  the  date  of  its 
production  as  Nov.  29,  1810,  at  Covent  Garden, 
and  1805  as  the  date  of  printing.  Under  the 
original  title  (Hero  of  the  North)  it  was  acted 
at  Drury  Lane  on  February  19,  1803,  in  which 
year  it  was  printed  and  immediately  went 
through  four  editions.  The  other  two  entries 
referred  to  at  the  beginning  of  this  paragraph 
are,  I  believe,  quite  wrong.  I  am  unacquainted 
with  any  play  entitled  GustaviLS  Vasa  in  any  lan- 
guage by  T.  Kotzelvie,  or  likewise  any  by  T.  Pi- 
ron  (1733).  In  the  last  named  year,  Alexis  Pi- 
ron  wrote  Gustave,  une  tragedie  en  cinque  actes, 
founded  on  the  history  of  Gustavus  I  of  Sweden. 
This  was  printed  at  Paris  in  French.  There 
were  four  editions  of  this  tragedy,  the  last 
being  in  1813,  besides  a  Dutch  translation  and 
one  in  Italian,  but  none  in  English.  In  ad- 
dition to  these,  there  was  a  four-act  drama 
in  Swedish  (Stockholm,  1858),  and  a  petite 
drama  in  French  (London,  1865)  on  the  same 
subject. 

T.  Dibdin  has  been  especially  slighted  by 
the  editor  of  the  Cyclopaedia,  having  no  fewer 
than  three  of  his  plays  overlooked, — Charles 
XII  and  Peter  the  Great,  The  Sixes,  or,  The 
Devil's  in  the  Dice,  and  Humphrey  Clinker 
(from  Smollet's  novel).  Minor  errors  of 
omission,  however,  are  not  of  so  much  im- 
portance as  errors  in  dates  of  productions  and 
revivals.  Some  of  these  have  been  noted 
already.  The  Younger  Coleman's  Surrender  of 
Calais  is  another  instance.  This  is  given  as 
having  been  first  performed  at  Drury  Lane, 


May  30,  1814,  whereas  it  was  produced  at 
the  Haymarket,  July  30,  1791.  In  the  case 
of  Percy,  the  Cyclopaedia  gives  July  6,  1780, 
as  the  date  when  it  was  first  brought  out  at 
the  Haymarket.  On  March  5,  1778,  Hannah 
Moore  wrote  to  Mrs.  Gwatkin :  "  I  am  very 
much  pleased  to  find  that  Percy  meets  with 
your  appropriation.  It  has  been  extremely  suc- 
cessful, ....  more  so  than  any  tragedy  has 
been  for  many  years.  .  .  .  The  author's  nights, 
sale  of  the  copy,  etc.,  amounted  to  near  six 
hundred  pounds ;  .  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  Mr.  Garrick 
has  been  so  good  as  to  lay  it  out"  in  the 
5  %'s.  (Memoirs,  3rd.  ed.,  i,  140.) 

The  foregoing  are  only  a  portion  of  the 
omissions  and  errors  found  hap-hazard  in  The 
Stage  Cyclopaedia,  but  they  are,  I  fancy, 
characteristic  of  what  any  student  will  find 
if  he  is  interested.  It  should  be  constantly 
borne  in  mind,  however,  that  there  are  between 
30,000  and  50,000  titles  in  this  compilation,  and 
that  the  ratio  formed  between  any  list  of  col- 
lected mistakes  and  the  whole  number  of  plays 
recorded  would  probably  appear  as  a  very  small 
fraction, — save  in  case  of  omissions.  Thinking 
to  arrive  at  more  definite  results  as  to  the 
question  of  errors  and  omissions  than  could 
be  reached  by  the  unmethodical  way  of  the 
reviewer,  I  conceived  the  idea  of  fixing  my 
examination  on  a  single  year,  and  as  we  have 
practically  complete  data  in  this  matter  for 
the  years  1829-1832  I  concentrated  my  at- 
tention on  those  years.  The  result  was 
amazing.  In  1829  there  were  145  pieces 
licensed  for  representation  in  London.  Of 
these,  the  Stage  Cyclopaedia  omits  34  plays 
in  English,  53  in  French,  and  1  in  Italian. 
Among  those  recorded  there  are  six  errors  of 
detail.  The  record  is  a  little  better  for  the  next 
three  years.  But  why  there  should  have  been 
any  omissions  whatever  for  these  particular 
years  is  inconceivable  on  any  ground  save  a 
lack  of  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the  docu- 
ment containing  the  information.  In  1832  a 
Select  Committee  was  appointed  by  the  House 
of  Commons  to  inquire  into  the  state  of 
dramatic  literature.  To  that  Committee  George 
Colman,  the  Younger,  then  Examiner  of  Plays, 
presented  a  list  of  all  the  pieces  which  had 


154 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


been  submitted  to  him  between  January  1, 
1829,  and  June  11,  1832.  This  exhibit  was 
made  a  part  of  the  Report,  which,  we  must 
presume,  is  known  to  all  special  students  of 
the  drama  and  the  stage.  (See  Parl.  Papers, 
1831-32,  Vol.  xxxv,  MS.  p.  413).  But  one 
may  well  imagine  that  twenty  years  devoted 
to  cataloguing  names  of  plays,  etc.,  might  cause 
one  to  almost  overlook  the  fact  that  there 
ever  was  a  Parliament! 

This  all  goes  to  show  that  work  of  this 
character  is  quite  impossible  for  any  one  hand, 
however  expert.  But  this  is  not  said  in  dis- 
paragement of  The  Stage  Cyclopedia,  for  it 
is  far  and  away  the  most  useful  work  of  its 
kind  that  has  ever  been  produced,  and  for  this 
reason  Mr.  Clarence  deserves  our  everlasting 
gratitude. 

WATSON  NICHOLSON. 

Author's  Club,  London. 


Tales  from  the  Old  French,  translated  by  ISABEL 
BUTLER.  Boston  :  Houghton,  Mifflin  Co., 
1910.  12mo.,  265  pp. 

Miss  Butler,  who  has  also  translated  the 
Roland,  offers  here  good  running  versions  of 
thirteen  Old  French  lais,  fabliaux  and  conies 
devote.  Under  the  first  heading  are  included  the 
Lai  du  Cor,  the  Mellon  and  the  Lai  de  I'  Oiselet, 
which  is  generally  classed  as  &  fabliau  ;  also,  from 
Marie  de  France,  Chaitivel,  Eliduc  and  Les  Dous 
Amanz.  The  fabliaux  chosen  are  all  from  the 
Montaiglon-Raynaud  collection  :  The  Divided 
Blanket,  Of  the  Churl  who  won  Paradise,  and 
The  Gray  Palfrey.  Schultz-Gora's  Chevalier  au 
Barisel  adds  its  length  to  the  ' '  contes  devots  et 
didactiques, "  and  as  shorter  samples  are  given 
(from  Me"on  and  Barbazan  et  Me"on),  The  Angel 
and  the  Hermit,  the  Order  of  Chivalry  and  The 
Jousting  of  Our  Lady  (Du  Chevalier  Qui  Ooit  la 
Messe  .  .  .). 

The  range  of  these  is  partly  limited  by  the  fact 
that  a  certain  type  of  ihe  fabliau  is  untranslatable; 
yet  perhaps  more  brevity  and  variety  could  have 
been  attained  ;  and  the  choice,  say,  of  Chievrefoil 


instead  of  the  rather  limp  Chaitivel  would  have 
been  advantageous.  Marie  has  been  abundantly 
dealt  with  by  translators.  Besides  Miss  Rickert's 
"Seven  Lays"  (mentioned  by  Miss  Butler),  we 
have  Arthur  O'Shaughnessy's  versions  and  a  less- 
known  rendering  of  three  others  in  the  third  vol- 
ume of  "Arthurian  Romances,"  published  by 
Nutt.  Bisclavret  is  given  there,  and  that  fact, 
together  with  her  own  inclusion  of  the  nearly 
allied  Mellon,  probably  prevented  Miss  Butler 
from  translating  the  more  famous  were-wolf  story. 
She  is  aware  that  five  of  her  collections  have  been 
translated  before  ;  to  which  may  be  added  the 
version  (inferior  to  Miss  Butler's)  of  The  Joust- 
ing of  Our  Lady  furnished  in  the  peculiar  missal- 
form  of  the  New  Mediaeval  Library.1 

In  the  actual  wording,  Miss  Butler  seems  to 
have  aimed  at  the  standard  set  by  Andrew  Lang 
in  his  classic  rendering  of  Aucassin  et  Nicolete — 
to  give  rather  the  atmosphere  of  an  Old  English 
counterpart,  the  flavor  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory. 
In  the  main,  naturally  barring  the  joyous  naivete 
that  Lang  found  ready  to  hand,  she  has  succeeded 
in  this  endeavor,  imparting  a  consistency  and  a 
flow  of  style  which  are  quite  admirable.  For 
accuracy  in  adapting  either  of  the  old  idioms, 
Miss  Butler's  translation,  while  not  impeccable, 
is  superior  to  most  such  efforts.  She  shows  more 
than  a  Wardour  Street  dexterity  in  fitting  her 
Old  English  cloak  to  the  occasional  angularity  of 
her  models.  Two  of  her  favorite  methods  are, 
first,  a  certain  fusion  of  construction,  resulting  in 
three  nouns — ' '  care  and  heed  and  study ' ' ;  and, 
second,  a  fusion  of  sentence-structure,  either  by 
wholesale  inversion  or,  less  frequently  and  less 
justifiably,  by  suppressing  a  period. 

There  is  a  generous  use  of  the  old  terms  :  vair 
and  viol,  paynimry,  churl,  'for  that,'  etc.;  and 
what  is  more  difficult,  the  translator  gives  the 
constant  illusion  of  age  in  the  very  reticulation  of 
the  sentence,  in  such  things  as  the  appropriate 
rendering  of  syntactical  doublets,  antitheses  and 
proverbs.  The  pronoun  confusion  of  the  Old 
French  was  very  great.  Miss  Butler  has  been 
put  to  it  skilfully  to  indicate  and  differentiate 
the  speaker.  Occasionally  there  is  a  lapse  into 

1  "  Of  the  Tumbler  of  Our  Lady  and  Other  Miracles," 
New  York,  Duffield  and  Co.,  1908. 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


155 


a  maze  of  '  he '  and  '  his '  where  the  parties  of 
each  part  are  entangled  with  thorough  legality. 

But  in  order  fully  to  appreciate  Miss  Butler's 
tact  and,  in  due  proportion,  fidelity,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  make  a  word-for-word  comparison  between 
her  text  and  the  original.  It  may  be  added  that 
I  have  found  this  the  best  way  to  take  pleasure  in 
her  text.  In  submitting  it  to  this  process,  while 
reading  four  of  her  selections,  I  have  found  three 
or  four  errors,  with  perhaps  twice  that  number  of 
scarcely  preferable  renderings.  This  does  not 
seem  excessive  for  a  volume  of  easy  and  excel- 
lent swing,  whose  primary  aim  is  not  literamess. 
It  should  find  its  function  in  arousing  the  interest 
of  beginners. 

E.  P.  DARGAN. 

University  of  California. 


Ooethes  Werke  in  seeks  Bdnden.  Im  Auftrage 
der  Goethe-Gesellschaft  ausgewahlt  und  her- 
ausgegeben  von  EBICH  SCHMIDT.  Leipzig, 
Insel  Verlag,  1909. 

To  those  teachers  of  German  in  America  who 
endeavor  to  give  their  students  a  fairly  definite 
conception  of  Goethe's  work  and  personality  as 
a  whole  this  edition  of  his  works  must  be  as 
welcome  as  to  a  certain  class  of  German  readers. 
Whatever  may  be  the  advantage  of  the  more 
fully  annotated  American  editions  of  single 
works,  or  however  great  may  be  the  opportunity 
of  access,  in  many  college  libraries,  to  the 
complete  German  editions,  the  value  to  the  stu- 
dents of  having  in  their  possession  such  a  set 
of  Goethe  as  that  here  furnished  is  inestimable. 
The  price  of  the  collection,  which  contains  over 
three  thousand  pages  apart  from  introductions 
and  notes,  is  6  marks,  and  it  can  be  put  in 
the  hands  of  the  student  for  $2.00.  This  was, 
at  least,  the  price  of  the  first  issue,  bound  not 
very  substantially  in  pasteboard.  A  second  issue 
has  since  appeared,  bound  in  cloth,  and  costing 
about  $3.00,  making  the  price  of  each  volume 
50cts.  For  the  benefit  of  those  who  give  special 
courses  dealing  with  Goethe  and  may  not  have 
seen  the  edition  I  will  give  a  brief  description 
of  its  contents. 

Its  general  purpose  is  evidently  to  extend 


the  knowledge  of  Goethe's  life  work  throughout 
wider  classes  of  the  people.  It  is  popular  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  word.  The  remarkable 
cheapness  of  the  collection,  which  is  of  course 
a  great  factor  in  the  accomplishment  of  the 
object  in  view,  was  made  possible  by  a  liberal 
contribution  of  the  Goethe  Society.  The  intro- 
ductions and  notes  to  be  found  in  the  appendix 
of  each  volume  are  necessarily  concise,  though 
very  much  to  the  point.  An  especially  welcome 
feature  is  a  vocabulary  of  unusual  words,  old 
forms,  foreign  words,  etc.  at  the  end  of 
every  volume.  Of  these  the  editor  says  that 
they  have  been  made  purposely  rather  too  full 
than  too  meager.  My  experience  with  the  edi- 
tion in  the  class  room  is  that  these  vocabularies 
nearly  always  give  help  where  it  is  needed. 
In  addition  to  this  the  first  volume  contains  an 
introduction  called  "  Lebenslauf,"  an  essay  of 
about  thirty  pages.  This  volume  opens  then 
with  212  pages  of  lyrics  selected  from  every 
phase  of  the  poet's  production,  beginning  with 
Zueignung  and  ending  with  Spriiche.  Perhaps 
here,  if  anywhere,  the  reader  will  be  inclined 
to  regret  the  necessary  brevity  of  the  notes, 
especially  in  the  case  of  the  rather  difficult 
Ilmenau.  A  queer  mistake  slipped  into  the 
note  on  this  poem,  where  the  words  in  verse  52 : 
"  —  ein  fliichtiger  Fiirst  wie  im  Ardenner- 
Wald,"  are  referred  to  the  "  Two  Gentlemen 
of  Verona"  instead  of  "As  You  Like  It." 
Next  in  this  volume  follows  Faust,  both  first 
and  second  parts.  From  the  first  part  the  Wai- 
pur -gisnachistraum  is  omitted.  The  appendix 
of  this  volume  contains,  for  example,  33  very 
full  pages,  not  counting  the  table  of  contents. 
The  second  volume  brings  G'otz  von  Berli- 
cliingen,  Clavigo,  Kiinstlers  Erdewallen,  Des 
Kiinstlers  Vergotterung,  Die  Gescliwister,  Eg- 
mont,  Iphigenie,  Tasso,  and  at  the  end  Paldo- 
phron  und  Neoterpe  and  Aus  dem  "  MasTcenzug 
1818."  Volume  3  opens  with  Werther,  upon 
which  follows  Die  Wahlverwandtschaften.  Next 
come  four  tales,  one  from  Unterhaltungen 
deulscher  Ausgewanderten,  two  from  Wilhelm 
Meisters  Wanderjdhre,  and  finally  Novelle. 
This  volume  closes  with  Hermann  und  Doro- 
thea. The  entire  fourth  volume  is  given  to 
Wilhelm  Meisters  Lelirjahre,  the  Wanderjahre 
being  represented  only  by  the  selections  in  the 


156 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


preceding  volume.  The  5th  volume  contains 
Dichtung  und  Wahrheit.  Of  this  the  editor 
says:  Ich  habe  besonders  in  den  fiinf  letzten 
Biichern  streichen  und  kiirzen  miissen,  natiirlich 
olme  Goethes  Wortlaut  irgend  zu  verandern. 
Yet  the  student  who  has  read  this  edition  of 
the  autobiography  will  not  have  missed  very 
much  of  the  essential  development  of  the  poet. 
There  are  about  550  pages,  which,  taking  into 
consideration  the  size  of  the  page,  make  over 
three  times  as  much  as  the  usual  American 
editions.  Personally  I  have  found  the  use  of 
this  volume  in  my  class  to  be  in  every  way 
profitable.  The  editor  says  that  he  lays  par- 
ticular stress  on  the  sixth  volume  of  his  edition. 
And  justly  so  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  the 
purpose  of  the  collection  is  to  further  the  appre- 
ciation of  the  poet's  work  and  personality  as 
a  whole.  The  first  340  pages  of  this  volume 
contain  Biographisches,  in  which  we  find  among 
other  things:  Brief  &  aus  der  Schweiz,  Aus  der 
Italienischen  Reise,  Kampagne  in  FranJcreich. 
The  remaining  150  pages  are  divided  between 
selections  Zur  Literatur,  Zur  Kunst,  Zur  Na- 
turwissenschaft,  and  Spruche  in  prose.  Most 
readers  will  probably  regret  the  comparatively 
small  number  of  these  last. 

This  edition  seems  to  me  to  meet  a  definite 
need  of  the  college  class  that  is  studying  Goethe. 
The  student  on  taking  the  books  into  his  hand 
will  find  many  of  his  old  friends,  such  as  Her- 
mann und  Dorothea,  Egmont,  many  poems,  per- 
haps IpJiigenie  or  Tasso.  He  can  naturally  be 
led  on  to  read  more  and  more,  to  see  relations 
and  connections  more  clearly  until  finally  as  the 
result  of  his  efforts  some  conception  of  the  poet 
as  a  whole  will  dawn  on  him.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  mention  the  most  obvious  advan- 
tage to  the  teacher  of  having  in  the  hands  of 
his  class  so  much  material  from  which  he  can 
draw  at  will  to  illustrate  various  phases  of 
the  author's  life  and  work.  These  books  will 
probably  not  be  found  feasible  except  in  classes 
that  devote  a  session  to  Goethe,  but  for  such  a 
use  they  are  well  worth  consideration. 

T.  MOODY  CAMPBELL. 
Randolph- M aeon  Woman's  College. 


Studies  in  New  Mexican  Spanish.  Part  I  :  Phon- 
ology. By  AUEELIO  M.  ESPINOSA.  Chicago: 
[Univ,  of  Chicago  Diss.],  1909.  8vo.,  116  pp.1 

The  author  of  this  doctor's  dissertation  shows  a 
firm  grasp  of  the  linguistic  sources  of  his  study 
and  has  made  an  important  contribution  to  our 
knowledge  of  American  Spanish.  Furthermore, 
in  connection  with  each  phenomenon  of  the  New 
Mexican  dialect  we  are  given  the  extent  of  its 
occurrence  in  Spain  and  other  Spanish-speaking 
countries. 

While  the  vast  majority  of  New  Mexican  traits 
occur  in  other  Spanish  dialects,  there  are  several 
features  that  characterize  the  dialect  in  question 
or  are  found  only  in  a  restricted  area  elsewhere. 
Intervocalic  m  and  n  may  fall  leaving  a  nasal 
vowel,  lana  >  laa,  hermano^>  erma(§§  28,  29). 
Initial  m  and  n  may  fall  leaving  the  following 
vowel  nasal  :  mi  papa  ^>  Ipapa,  mas  que  tu  > 
aslcdu  (§  30).  Intervocalic  //  disappears  entirely, 
especially  in  the  San  Luis  Valley  :  caballo  > 
cabao,  calla  >  ca  (§  158).  S,  out  earlier  z, 
may  become  aspirate  h  :  vicios  >  vihigs  (§  154). 
The  group  sd  develops  into  a  pure  voiced  or  voice- 
less sibilant  :  los  dos  >  IQZQS,  desde  >  d$z$,  d$sg 
(§  104).  The  group  eps  >  aus  in  the  region  of 
Santa  Fe  :  exception  >  esaucion  (§  176). 

The  chapter  on  ' '  Phonetic  Changes  in  words 
of  English  origin"  (pp.  95-104),  has  a  distinct 
interest.  The  number  of  words  in  common  use 
that  are  borrowed  directly  from  English  is  about 
two  hundred.  Such  words  as  fuliar  '  to  fool, ' 
blofero  '  bluffer,'  jo  Ion  'hold  on,'  b$sbpl  'base- 
ball,' broquis  'broke,'  ploga  'plug,'  sante 
'shanty,'  sarap  'shut  up'  etc.,  amply  attest  a 
popular  origin,  and  the  phonetic  changes  in  these 
words  form  a  valuable  chapter  in  folk-speech. 
The  palatalization  of  ka  and  ga  (§  219)  is  strik- 
ing, but  the  examples  show  this  change  only 
before  d  +  nasal  :  Kansas  >  Quianses,  candy  > 
quiande,  gang  >>  guiangue,  whereas  caboose  > 
co-bus  (§  233).  Again  it  is  not  clear  why  final 
-er  >  a  in  quarter  >  cuara,  dollar  >  dqla,  washer 
guasa  (§  234),  while  the  same  -er  becomes 
e  in  cracker  >  craque,  Winchester  >  guinchgstg 
(§  263).  Possibly  the  varying  local  pronuncia- 

1  Extrait  de  la  Revue  de  Dialectologie,  I  (1909). 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


157 


tion  may  explain  transom  >  transg  in  contrast  to 
Lincoln  >  .Li'ncp  (§  262).  The  statement  that 
parasitic  s  is  found  "especially  after  tonic  vow- 
els" (§  260)  does  not  seem  entirely  accurate  in 
view  of  the  larger  number  of  examples  where  this 
s  is  added  after  the  posttonic  vowel,  v.  g.  broke  > 
brgquis,  George  >  Chgrchis,  Ennqu'e  >  Anriques, 
Mary  >  Merqs.  The  s  in  Gim$s  (Jimmy),  and 
Charles  (Charlie),  may  rather  show  influence  of 
English  James  and  Charles,  respectively  ;  and  it 
seems  likely  that  Maque  represents  Eng.  Mack 
instead  of  Max  (§  258).  The  more  or  less  irreg- 
ular vowel  development  of  several  New  Mexi- 
can Spanish  words,  not  recorded  in  this  chapter, 
might  be  explained  on  the  ground  of  English 
influence,  thus  :  Acupar — occupy,  bitumen — vol- 
ume, alcohol — alcohol,  moselina — muslin,  otomovil 
— automobile.  In  connection  with  the  chapter  on 
English  influence,  the  author  might  have  men- 
tioned Juan  Ignacio  Armas,  Origines  del  Len- 
guage  Criollo,  2a  ed.,  Habana,  1882.  On  pages 
86-89  Armas  gives  a  list  of  about  sixty  English 
words  that  have  gone  into  Cuban  Spanish.  This 
list,  taken  with  the  New  Mexican  words,  would 
form  the  basis  of  an  interesting  comparative  study. 

In  some  cases  the  author  refers  to  important 
dialect  phenomena  without  elucidating  or  fur- 
nishing material.  No  examples  are  cited  for  the 
fall  of  initial  y  <  II  (p.  75,  n.  3),  or  for  the  fall  of 
intervocalic  n  (§  28).  We  are  told  that  epen- 
thetic e  occurs  in  New  Mexico  in  very  rare  cases 
"which  are  not  worth  while  considering."  A 
list  of  the  "  only  some  ten  words  of  New  Mexi- 
can Indian  source  "  (p.  10)  would  have  been 
most  welcome. 

The  following  comments  are  suggested  by 
various  statements  in  the  treatise.  The  fall  of 
intervocalic  g  is  posited  as  a  regular  law  whereas 
the  examples  show  the  fall  only  before  the  vowels 
a,  o,  u  (§  181).  Furthermore,  we  find  the  pre- 
servation of  g  in  comigo,  contigo,  agonia,  jigado, 
etc.,  which  deserve  more  detailed  explanation 
in  §  114.  The  fact  that  g  falls  at  times,  inter- 
changes with  b  or  v  at  others  (§§  118,  137), 
and  in  some  cases  is  used  to  break  hiatus  (§  97), 
adds  weight  to  the  view  that  New  Mexican  Spanish 
had,  or  still  has,  a  spirant  g.  The  epenthetic  r  in 
pelagarto  (§  197)  may  show  influence  of  lagar- 
tillo,  lagartijo.  The  "sporadic"  development 


mentioned  in  §  237  seems  normal  in  view  of  the 
actual  Eng.  pronunciation  :  Christmas  <  Crismgs, 
risfa  <  recess.  The  symbol  o'hardly  represents  the 
phonetic  value  of  a  in  English  harrow  which 
becomes  jaira,  nor  ou  the  value  of  o  in  English 
how  much  which  becomes  jqmachi.  The  fall  of 
tonic  a  in  est'entero  «  esta  entered)  is  so  unusual 
as  to  cause  doubt  in  regard  to  the  transcription, 
especially  as  this  is  the  only  example  in  proof 
that  "tonic  a  falls  before  any  vowel  "  (§  87).  The 
statement  on  page  79,  note  1,  should  be  corrected 
in  the  light  of  Ferran  Ferraz's  Nabuatlismos  de 
Costa  Rica,  pp.  xiii-xiv  ;  and  to  list  of  works  on 
New  Mexican  Spanish  (p.  5)  might  be  added 
Charles  F.  Lummis  "New-Mexican  Folk  Songs" 
(The  Land  of  Poco  Tiempo,  pp.  217-250). 

The  Introduction  contains  an  outline  of  the 
colonization  history  of  the  territory  and  the 
sources  of  the  dialect.  In  content  and  method 
this  chapter  does  not  measure  up  to  the  rest  of 
the  book.  The  enumeration  of  the  dialects  of 
Spain  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries 
(§1),  is  cited  as  proof  that  all  these  dialects 
entered  into  the  make-up  of  New  Mexican  Span- 
ish (§  5).  Cabeza  de  Vaca  (1536)  and  Coronado 
(1540)  are  both  credited  with  being  the  first 
Spaniard  to  visit  New  Mexico.  The  unsupported 
statement  that  "it  is  highly  probable  that  Cabeza 
de  Vaca  visited  New  Mexico  in  1536  "  is  surpris- 
ing in  view  of  the  contrary  opinion  held  by  such 
modern  critics  as  Bourne,  Lowery,  Bandelier, 
Hodge,  and  Wiuship.  Indeed,  throughout  the 
historical  summary,  Espinosa  has  relied  too  much 
on  the  short  histories  of  Price  and  Haines,  and 
the  unauthenticated  statements  of  Bancroft. 

The  book  contains  several  valuable  accessories  : 
a  map  of  New  Mexican  Spanish  territory,  bibli- 
ography, transcription  of  dialect  texts,  and  a  com- 
plete word  index.  That  the  author  is  a  New 
Mexican,  gives  him  a  knowledge  of  the  dialect 
that  adds  distinctly  to  the  value  of  the  work.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  the  second  part,  on  Morphol- 
ogy, will  appear  soon,  as  also  the  promised  Can- 
cionero  popular  nuevo  mexicano. 


C.  CARROLL  MARDEN. 


Johns  Hopkins  University. 


158 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


CORRESPONDENCE 

SHENSTONE  ON  RICHARDSON'S  Pamela 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — In  reading  a  volume  of  the  poet  Shen- 
stone's  letters,1  recently,  I  came  upon  what  ap- 
pears to  be  a  significant  reference  to  the  first  one 
of  our  great  modern  English  novels,  Richardson's 
Pamela.  The  first  two  letters  of  the  volume 
are  addressed  to  one  of  the  poet's  life-long,  inti- 
mate friends,  Richard  Jago,  and  both  are  from 
the  year  1739.  But  the  second  letter  bears  the 
superscription  or  title  ' '  To  the  same,  in  the  Man- 
ner of  Pamela,"  and  is  intended,  after  a  brief  in- 
troduction, to  reproduce  a  conversation  between 
Shenstone  and  his  housekeeper,  Mrs.  Arnold,  in 
imitation  of  one  of  Richardson' s  dialogues  between 
Mrs.  Jewkes  and  Mr.  B.  The  first  part  of  the 
letter  is  as  follows  : 

' '  Well !  and  so  I  sat  me  down  in  my  room,  and 
was  reading  Pamela — one  might  furnish  this  book 
with  several  pretty  decorations,  thought  I  to  my- 
self ;  and  then  I  began  to  design  cuts  for  it,  in 
particular  places.  For  instance,  one,  where  Pam- 
ela is  forced  to  fall  upon  her  knees  in  the  arbour : 
a  second,  where  she  is  in  bed,  and  Mrs.  Jewkes 
holds  one  hand,  and  Mr.  B.  the  other  :  a  third, 
where  Pamela  sits  sewing  in  the  summer-house, 
&c.  So  I  just  sketched  them  out,  and  sent  my 
little  hints,  such  as  they  were,  to  Mr.  R — n.  As 
soon  as  I  had  sealed  my  letter,  in  comes  Mrs. 
Arnold — .  '  Well,  Mrs.  Arnold,  says  I,  this  Mr. 
Jago  never  comes — what  can  one  do  ?  I'm  as  dull 
as  a  beetle  for  want  of  company,'  '  Sir,  says  she, 
the  hen — '  '  What  makes  you  out  of  breath  ?  says 
I,  Mrs.  Arnold,'  "  etc. 

Ever  since  the  appearance  of  Mrs.  Barbauld's 
Biographical  Account  of  Richardson,2  students  of 
Richardson  have  been  committed  to  1740  as  the 
year  in  which  his  first  novel  was  published. 
Indeed,  the  following  from  Richardson's  own 
account  of  the  origin  of  Pamela  as  first  printed  by 
Mrs.  Barbauld  might  seem  to  fix  the  exact  date 
beyond  question  : 

' '  While  I  was  writing  the  two  volumes  my 
worthy  hearted  wife  and  the  young  lady  who  is 
with  us,  when  I  had  read  them  some  part  of  the 
story,  which  I  had  begun  without  their  knowing 
it,  used  to  come  into  my  little  closet  every  night 
with  :  '  Have  you  any  more  of  Pamela,  Mr.  Rich- 
ardson? We  are  come  to  hear  a  little  more  of 
Pamela,  etc. '  This  encouraged  me  to  prosecute  it, 
which  I  did  so  diligently,  through  all  my  other 
business,  that  by  a  memorandum  on  my  copy  I 

1  Vol.  Ill  of  Works  in  Verse  and  Prose,  London,  Dodsley, 
1777. 

1  Prefixed  to  her  edition  of  Richardson's  Correspondence, 
London,  1804. 


began  it  November  10,  1739,  and  finished  it 
January  10,  1740."3 

It  is  of  course  possible  that  Mrs.  Barbauld 
made  some  mistake  in  copying  the  manuscript, 
for  "she  is  not,"  as  Miss  Thomson  says,  "in- 
variably correct."  It  is  however  rather  im- 
probable that  she  did  not  reproduce  the  manu- 
script in  this  instance  exactly.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  to  be  regretted  that  Miss  Thomson,  who  ap- 
parently had  access  to  the  original,  did  not  at  least 
collate  Mrs.  Barbauld's  reprint  of  such  letters  as 
she  quoted  with  the  author's  own  manuscript.4 

It  is  of  course  not  impossible  that  Richardson 
himself  was  in  error  as  to  the  exact  date  of  the 
completion  of  Pamela.  The  account  of  the  origin 
of  his  first  novel  was  apparently  written  several 
years  after  the  publication  of  the  book,  but  he  had 
the  ' '  memorandum  on  the  copy ' '  to  assist  him  in 
fixing  the  date. 

In  spite  of  the  good  work  of  Austin  Dobson 5 
and  Miss  Thomson,  there  still  seems  to  be 
considerable  obscurity  about  the  exact  date  of 
the  publication  of  Pamela.  It  is,  for  instance, 
difficult  to  understand  how  a  book  as  popular  as 
Pamela  was  could  be  in  circulation  for  about  two 
months  before  it  attracted  the  notice  of  the  review- 
ers. It  is  recorded  in  the  "Register  of  Books" 
of  The  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  November,  1740, 
as  number  18  in  the  list :  "Pamela  ;  or  Virtue 
rewarded.  Printed  for  C.  Rivington  in  2  Vols. 
12mo-  Price  6s."  But  the  December  (1740) 
issue  of  the  magazine  contains  no  reference  to  it, 
and  in  the  January  (1741)  number  the  editor  in- 
serts a  note  at  the  end  of  the  "Register  of  Books" 
saying  that 

' '  Several  encomiums  on  a  series  of  Familiar 
Letters  publish' d  but  last  month,  entitled  Pamela, 
or  Virtue  rewarded,  came  too  late  for  this  maga- 
zine, and  we  believe  there  will  be  little  occasion  for 
inserting  them  in  our  next ;  because  a  second  edi- 
tion will  then  come  out  to  supply  the  demands  in 
the  country,  it  being  judged  in  town  as  great  a 
sign  of  want  of  curiosity  not  to  have  read  Pa- 
mela, as  not  to  have  seen  the  French  and  Italian 
dancers."  6 

A  second  edition  is  then  recorded  in  the  register 
of  The  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  February 
(1741)  as  number  46:  "Pamela;  or,  Virtue 
rewarded.  The  2d  Edition,  with  an  Addition 
of  some  Extracts  of  Letters  upon  the  Subject. 
Printed  for  C.  Rivington.  pr.  6s."  'The 

3  See  Samuel  Richardson,    A  Biographical  and   Critical 
Study.     By  Clara  Linklater  Thomson.     London,  1900, 
pp.  22-23. 

4  There  is  to  be  sure  nothing  in  Miss  Thomson's  excel- 
lent book  to  show  that  she  did  not  examine  the  originals 
in  every  case  where  it  was  possible. 

5  Samuel  Richardson.     Eng.  Men  of  Letters.     London, 
1902. 

6Cf.  Dobson,  pp.  30-31,  where  an  exact  reprint  of  the 
note  is  given. 


May,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


159 


third  edition  is  recorded  in  March  and  the 
fourth  in  May,  but  the  novel  was  apparently  in- 
complete in  all  these  early  editions.  For  we  find 
a  record  in  the  "Register  of  Books"  for  Decem- 
ber, 1741  (No.  31)  to  this  effect:  "Pamela, 
vol.  3  and  4  by  the  author  of  the  two  first,  pr. 
6  s.  Rivington." 

Another  question  that  suggests  itself  in  this 
connection  is  :  If  Richardson  actually  finished  the 
novel  on  January  10,  1740,  why  did  he  keep  it 
for  ten  mouths  before  publishing  it?  It  would 
hardly  have  required  so  much  time  to  get  the  two 
volumes  thru  the  press.  One  easy  way  out  of  the 
difficulty  created  by  Shenstone's  letter  is,  of  course, 
to  assume  that  the  editor  of  his  works  (his  good 
friend  Dodsley)  dated  the  letter  wrong.  The  first 
four  letters  of  the  collection  are  in  each  case  dated 
"1739,"  and  the  first  two  of  these  four,  as  noted 
above,  are  addressed  to  Mr.  Jago  and  seem  to 
belong  together.  Moreover,  this  is  the  only  one 
of  the  1739  letters  which  bears  at  the  end  the 
definite  dating  (of  the  author  himself,  we  must 
think):  "  Leasowes,  July  22." 

The  possible  assumption  that  Shenstone  might 
have  read  the  story  in  manuscript  would  not  mend 
matters,  as  there  are  no  cogent  reasons  for  sup- 
posing that  the  poet  and  the  novelist  were  ever 
intimately  associated  as  friends, — even  if  we 
granted  that  Richardson  was  mistaken  in  his  own 
dates  of  composition  (Nov.  10,  1739  to  Jan.  10, 
1740).  Other  references  to  Richardson  (there 
are  not  many)  in  the  letters  throw  no  light  on  the 
question  of  the  date  of  publication  of  Pamela. 
Writing  to  his  friend  Graves  in  17437  he  says  : 
' '  Pamela  would  have  made  one  good  volume ;  and 
I  wonder  the  author,  who  has  some  nice  natural 
strokes,  should  not  have  sense  enough  to  see 
that."  Once  or  twice  he  casually  mentions  Cla- 
rissa and  Grandison,  and  we  know  from  a  letter  to 
Percy  written  in  the  last  year  but  one  of  his  life 
that  Shentone  was  an  ardent  admirer  of  Richard- 
son's. Speaking  of  a  '  'pompous  edition  of  Thom- 
son's works"  he  asks  Percy:  "And  does 
not  his  monument  put  you  in  mind  of  what 
the  Publick  owes  to  Mr.  Richardson  ?  For  my 
own  part,  I  never  Look  into  his  works  but  with 
greater  Admiration  of  his  Genius — and  then,  if 
we  regard  the  extensive  good  they  were  so  well 
calculated  to  promote,  there  are  few  characters  to 
whom  the  Nation  may  be  said  to  owe  greater 
Honours. ' ' 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  Shenstone's  letter  has  not 
been  noticed  by  any  of  Richardson's  biographers 
and  critics,  tho  the  reference  to  Pamela,  explicit 
as  it  is,  if  it  does  not  prove  that  the  novel  was  in 
circulation  as  early  as  July,  1739,  makes  it  in- 
cumbent upon  the  student  of  Richardson  to  show 
beyond  a  doubt  that  the  letter  is  incorrectly  dated. 

WM.   H.  HULME. 

Western  Reserve  University. 


A  CO-INCIDENCE  EXPLAINED. 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS: — In  May  1909,  I  published  in  Modern 
Language  Notes  a  paper  on  "  Some  Debts  of 
Samuel  Daniel  to  Du  Bellay."  The  substance 
of  this  paper  had  appeared  in  an  essay  by  Pro- 
fessor Kastner  in  the  Modern  Language  Review 
of  April,  1908,  "  The  Elizabethan  Sonneteers 
and  the  French  Poets."  What  has  the  look  of 
cool  plagiarism  was,  however,  in  fact,  an  inno- 
cent co-incidence.  My  paper  comprised  part  of 
a  "  report "  made,  in  the  course  of  the  academic 
year  1907-1908,  for  Professor  C.  H.  Page's 
course  on  French  influence  in  the  English  Re- 
naissance ;  a  "  report "  which  was  read  in  that 
course  before  Professor  Kastner's  article  was 
accessible  here.  Owing  to  press  of  work,  I  did 
not  prepare  the  paper  for  publication  until  the 
following  spring,  when  I  sent  it  to  Modern 
Language  Notes.  I  myself,  in  making  re- 
searches along  other  lines,  discovered  that  Pro- 
fessor Kastner  had  anticipated  me,  and  at  once 
communicated  with  him.  My  explanation  of 
the  circumstances  satisfied  him,  and  I  call  atten- 
tion to  the  co-incidence  now  only  to  spare 
possible  students  of  this  corner  of  a  large  subject 
any  confusion  in  the  matter. 

CAROLINE  RUDTZ-REES. 

Greenwich,   Conn. 


THE  Nibelungenlied  AND  Sir  Beves  of  Hampton 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes, 

SIRS  : — A  striking  and  curious  parallel  with 
the  Nibelungenlied  has,  in  so  far  as  I  know,  been 
passed  over  unnoticed  by  those  editing  or  com- 
menting on  the  Old  French  and  Middle  English 
versions  of  Sir  Beves  of  Hampton.  The  likeness 
is  between  the  Beves  "  Episode  in  Cologne"  and 
the  story  of  the  wedding  of  Gunther  and  Brunhild. 

The  Nibelungenlied l  describes  the  wedding  with 
fervor  ;  afterwards,  it  tells  how  attendant  maids 
and  men  escort  the  bridal  couple  to  their  rest  ; 
how  Brunhild  profers  her  first  request  to  her  lord, 
and  on  being  refused,  takes  rude  vengeance.  She 
seizes  her  girdle,  ties  with  it  his  feet  and  hands, 
and  hangs  him  up  to  a  nail  on  the  wall.  "  J&  het 
er  ir  krefte  vil  n&ch  gewunn^n  den  tot. ' ' 

1  Bartsch,  Das  Nibelungenlied,  636-8.     Leipzig,  1886. 


160 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  5. 


It  is  a  scene  of  almost  burlesque  humour  but  of 
obvious  appeal  to  a  middle  class  audience  to  whom 
the  comic  misfortunes  of  the  great  were  ever  de- 
lectable. It  is,  moreover,  an  integral  part  of  the 
story, — a  fact  which  makes  for  its  original  use 
here, — for  Brunhild's  victory  over  her  husband 
necessitated  Gunther's  second  plea  to  Sigurd, 
whose  help  when  it  was  given,  proved  of  such 
fatal  consequence.  In  this  it  differs  naturally 
from  Sir  Beves  where  the  use  of  the  incident  is 
purely  episodic.  In  the  twelfth  century  French 
version2  the  Saracen  Princess  Josian  is  left  at 
Cologne  by  her  true  lover,  Beves,  and  is  forcibly 
wooed  by  Earl  Miles. 

Ore  vus  dirrai  de  Miles  1'adverser, 
ke  fist  Josian  trial  gre  le  sun  esposer. 
Mai  gre  le  sun  la  inena  a  muster, 
raal  gre  le  sun  la  fist  la  nuit  coclier, 
devant  le  list  se  sist,  se  prent  a  deschaucer, 
forement  se  hast  de  Josian  vergunder. 
Josian  le  veist  si  commence  a  suspirer, 
ele  prent  sa  seynture  de  sey  de  oltre  mer, 
une  lacete  en  fist  solum  son  saver, 
outre  le  col  Miles  si  la  prent  a  giter. 

E  li  quens  Miles  de  une  part  se  sist, 
e  la  pucele  de  altre  part  sailist, 
a  sey  le  tret  e  le  col  li  rumpist. 

This  outline,  for  it  is  practically  no  more,  is 
followed  by  the  fourteenth  century  Middle  English 
version,  though  with  some  additions  that  are 
oddly  in  character  with  the  Nibelungen  poet. 
The  English  tale 3  describes  more  fully  the  young 
escorts  who  come 

Wi'S  pytnent  and  wiS  spisorie, 
WrS  al  iSe  gamen  3at  hii  hedde. 

Josian,  a  seemingly  gentler  Brunhild,  makes  her 
first  request,  begging  that  the  company  be  sent 
away  ;  Earl  Miles  agrees,  naively  remarking, 

' '  Me  schon  i  mot  me  self  of  drawe, 
Ase  y  neueer  jet  ne  dede. ' ' 

While  he  bends  to  his  task,  Josian  ' '  on  a 
towaile ' '  made  a  ' '  knotte  riding ' ' 

Aboute  his  nekke  she  hit  ~Srew 
And  on  fte  raile  tre  glie  drew  : 
Be  "Se  nekke  glie  haft  him  tigt 
&  let  him  so  ride  al  fte  nijt. 

That  the  outcome  is  different,  Earl  Miles  perish- 
ing, and  Josian  being  hurried  to  the  stake  when 

*  Suchier,  Boeve  de  Hamtonc.  Bibliotheca  Nonnan- 
nica,  vir,  77,  vers  2099-2126. 

s  Kolbing,  Sir  Beves  of  Hamlounc.  Early  Eng.  Text 
Soc.  Ex.  Ser.  46,  48,  65. 


the  deed  is  discovered,  does  not  affect  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  earlier  parallel.  The  story  is,  of 
course,  as  a  recent  critic,  Mr.  Jordan  4  points  out, 
of  that  old  and  well-liked  group  in  which  a 
maiden  kills  an  unloved  husband  on  her  wedding 
night,  but  the  parallels  he  gives  are  as  far  afield 
as  the  Rosamond  story,  in  which  the  motive  is 
different,  the  killing  of  a  different  kind  and  not 
done  by  the  heroine,  and  in  which  there  is  nothing 
of  even  unconsciously  humorous  suggestion.  In 
view  of  such  divergence,  a  likeness  as  clearly 
defined  as  this  between  the  German  and  the 
French  versions  becomes  more  notable,  especially 
when  one  remembers  Mr.  Jordan's  statement : 
"So  scheint — es  uns  moglich,  die  Episode  als 
Interpolation  einer  beliebten  Erzahlung  anzusehen, 
wenn  wir  auch  eine  direkte  Quell  e  nicht  nach- 
weisen  konnen." 


LAURA  A.  HIBBAED. 


Mount  Holyokc  College. 


BRIEF   MENTION 

In  view  of  the  discontinuance  of  Cultura  Espa- 
nola,  the  announcement  of  the  new  monthly  jour- 
nal, Archivo  de  Investigacion.es  Historicas,1  is  of 
timely  interest.  The  editor  is  D.  Juan  M.  San- 
chez ;  and  the  first  number,  which  has  just  appeared, 
gives  much  space  to  questions  of  Spanish  litera- 
ture :  Da.  Blanca  de  los  Rios  de  Lamperez,  El 
11  Don  Juan"  de  Tirso  de  Molina;  D.  Julio 
Puyol,  Cantar  de  gesta  de  Don  Sancho  II  de  Cas- 
tillo, ;  D.  Juan  M.  Sanchez,  Reproduction  en  fac- 
simile de  un  Pregon  de  Tasas  y  Jornales,  impreso 
en  Zarogoza  en  1558.  Each  number  will  consist 
of  ninety  to  one  hundred  pages. 


Professor  A.  A.  Moore,  late  of  Princeton,  and 
Professor  G.  T.  Northup  of  the  same  university, 
announce  that  they  are  preparing  an  edition  of 
the  Old  Spanish  prose  Tristan  from  the  manu- 
script preserved  in  the  Vatican  library. 

4L.  Jordan,  "  Uber  Boeve  de  Haustone,"  Zeitschrift  fur 
Romanische^Philoloyie,  Beiheft  xiv,  27  and  69.  See  also 
C.  Boje,  "Uber  den  Altfranzosischen  Roman  von  Boeve 
de  Hantone,"  id.,  xix,  115.  Here  again  the  motives  of 
the  incident  being  given  as  "  Die  Befreiung  der  Geliebten 
(A)  am  Altar,  (B)  am  Scheiterhaufen,"  neglect  its  most 
striking  characteristics. 

^Madrid  :  Victoriano  Suarez.  Subscription,  24  pesetas 
in  Spain  ;  30  pesetas  in  foreign  countries. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES 


VOL.  XXVI. 


BALTIMORE,   JUNE,    1911. 


No.  6. 


THE  DEBATE  OF  HEART  AND  EYE 

In  a  recent  number  of  Anglia1  there  appears 
under  the  editorship  of  Miss  Eleanor  Hammond 
a  hitherto  inaccessible  version  of  the  Debate 
between  the  Heart  and  the  Eye.  The  poem  pos- 
sesses no  particular  literary  merit,  but  it  is  not 
without  its  interest  to  students  of  mediaeval  liter- 
ature as  being  perhaps  the  only  English  treatment 
of  this  familiar  theme.  Miss  Hammond  in  her 
introduction  mentions  the  French  Debat  du  Cuer 
et  de  I'  Oeil  as  the  source  of  the  English  poem 
and  refers  to  several  other  more  or  less  closely 
related  embodiments  of  the  same  idea.  The  his- 
tory of  the  origin  and  development  of  this  dis- 
pute, as  it  may  be  inferred  from  the  evidence  at 
hand,  offers  several  points  of  special  interest  and 
is  in  many  ways  typical  of  the  debate  in  general. 

The  basis  of  the  controversy  between  Eye  and 
Heart  is  clearly  the  general  idea,  frequently  re- 
ferred to  by  classical  authors  *  and  ultimately  de- 
rived, perhaps,  from  a  passage  in  Plato,3  that  love 
is  created  in  the  soul  of  man  through  the  medium 
of  the  eye.  Among  the  mediaeval  courtly  poets 
this  conception  became,  as  is  well  known,  a  part 
of  the  system  of  courtly  love.  With  them,  how- 
ever, the  conceit  generally  assumed  a  special  form, 
exact  classical  parallels  for  which  are  very  in- 
frequent.4 Love  is  said  to  enter  or  strike  through 
the  eye  and  to  capture  or  wound  the  heart. 
This  motive,  which  appears  early  in  the  Pro- 
ven§al  lyric,  was  elaborated  by  Chrestieu  de 

lAngKa,  xxxiv,  235  ff. 

2 See  H.  L.  Lang,  "The  Eyes  as  Generators  of  Love," 
Modern  Language  Notes,  1908,  pp.  126-7. 

3  Phacdrus,  251  B.  Cf.  Rohde,  Der  Oriechische  Roman, 
2te.  Aufl.  (1900),  pp.  158 ft.;  also  Anna  Luderitz,  Die 
liebestheorie  der  Provenfalen  bei  den  minnesingern,  pp.  102-3. 

*  Compare,  however,  the  strikingly  similar  idea  in  the 
following  passage  from  Achilles  Tatius,  quoted  by  Joseph 
de  Perrott  in  The  Nation  (New  York),  May  4,  1911,  p. 
444  :  KdXXoj  y&p  d^repov  TtrptlxrKfi  /SAous,  ical  Sid.  TUV 
6(f>0a\/j.uv  e/s  TTJV  ^uxV  Karappet  '0<£0aXn6s  yip  65ks 
tpuriKtf  Tpatinari.  ( Achillis  Tatii  de  Lencippes  et  Clito- 
phontis  amoribus  liber  primus. ) 


Troyes,  and  to  his  influence  is  due,  at  least  in 
part,  its  popularity.5  From  the  love  poetry  of 
northern  and  southern  France  the  conceit  appears 
to  have  passed  to  Italy,  Germany,  Spain,  and 
England,  where  it  became  almost  a  commonplace 
in  courtly  verse. 

As  stated  by  the  troubadours  and  trouv£res 
the  function  of  heart  and  eye  in  the  creation  of 
love  naturally  provoked  the  question  of  their  rela- 
tive responsibility  for  the  pains  of  the  lover,  and 
Chrestien,  in  a  characteristic  passage8  distinct 
from  that  referred  to  above,  makes  his  heroine 
discuss  the  problem  with  herself.  She  at  first 
accuses  her  eyes  of  treason  for  having  admitted 
the  image  of  the  loved  one  to  her  heart  ;  but, 
since  one  does  not  love  with  one's  eyes,  she  con- 
fesses that  they  are  not  to  blame.  Who  then  is  ? 
Herself,  that  is  her  heart,  without  whose  wish  the 
eyes  see  nothing.  The  problem  thus  suggested 
furnished  excellent  material  for  a  formal  debate. 
It  was  necessary  only  to  complete  the  personifica- 
tion of  the  heart  and  the  eye  and  to  make  them 
carry  on  the  dispute  themselves,  a  step  which,  in 
view  of  the  popularity  of  similar  debates,  was 
natural  and  easy. 

In  the  Disputatio  inter  Cor  et  Oculum,"1  how- 
ever, which  appears  to  be  the  earliest  formal 
debate  between  Eye  and  Heart,  the  issue  is  not 
their  relative  responsibility  for  love  but  for  sin  ; 
and  it  is  a  fair  question  whether  the  theological 
problem  did  not  precede  and  suggest  the  amatory. 

After  a  brief-  expository  introduction,  the  Heart 
begins  the  dispute  by  accusing  the  Eye  of  being 
the  source  of  evil,  the  "tinder  and  the  spur"  of 
sin.  The  Eye  denies  the  charge,  affirming  that 
it  is  the  Heart's  faithful  servant  and  but  follows 

5  Cliges,  ed.  Foerster,  vv.  695  ff. ;    Yvain,  ed.  Foerster, 
vv.  1368  ff.     See  L.  F.  Mott,  The  System  of  Courtly  Love, 
p.  31. 

6  Cliges,  vv.  475  ff. 

7  Published  by  Thomas  Wright,  The  Latin  Poems  com- 
monly attributed  to  Waller  Mapes,  pp.  93  ff.     I  have  used 
the  more  correct  text  given  by  Haur<?au,  Notices  et  Ex- 
traits,  vol.  i,  p.  366.    See  also  B.  Peiper,  Herrigs  Archiv, 
vn,  424  ff. 


162 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  JVb.  6. 


its  commands.  The  evil  which  enters  at  the  Eye 
does  not  corrupt  the  Heart  unless  the  Heart  con- 
sents. Then  Reason  comes  and  renders  judgment. 
Both  are  guilty  but  not  in  the  same  degree  ;  for 
the  Heart  is  the  cause  of  sin,  the  Eye  but  the 
occasion. 

Some  connection  between  this  academic  jeu 
d*  esprit  and  the  courtly  problem  discussed  in  the 
Cligte  will  hardly  be  denied.  Were  the  trouveres 
or  the  theologians  the  debtors  ?  The  Disputatio 
is  ascribed  on  the  authority  of  the  chronicler 
Salimbene  and  several  manuscripts  to  Philippe  de 
GrSve,  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Paris  and 
prolific  author  of  Latin  nugae  of  the  kind.8  Phil- 
ippe died  in  the  year  1237,  and  if  the  debate  is 
his,  it  is  not  likely  to  have  been  written  earlier 
than  the  passage  in  Chrestien.  Furthermore,  as 
I  have  suggested,  the  question  of  responsibility 
grows  naturally  out  of  the  general  theory  of  the 
function  of  heart  and  eye  in  the  development  of 
love.  It  would  seem  likely,  therefore,  that  Phi- 
lippe derived  a  suggestion  from  Chrestieu  or  some 
other  secular  poet.  A  significant  circumstance 
with  regard  to  the  Disputatio  is  its  clear  connec- 
tion with  the  Visio  Fulberti,9  the  best  known 
Latin  version  of  the  Debate  between  the  Body 
and  the  Soul.  The  elements  of  the  problem  in 
both  poems  are  identical.  The  Soul  accuses  the 
Body  of  having  brought  about  its  destruction  by 
sin  ;  the  Body  replies  that  it  was  the  mere  passive 
instrument.  The  two  poems  contain  parallels  in 
phraseology  which  are  so  close  as  to  make  the 
relation  between  them  indubitable. 

Visio  :  "  Arnbo,  dico,  possumus  adeo  culpari : 

Et  debemus  utique,  sed  non  culpa  pari : 
Tibi  culpa  gravior  debet  imputari." 

Disputatio  :   "  Utrumque  reum  reputat, 
Sed  non  pari  periculo, 
Nam  cordi  causam  imputat, 
Occasionem  oculo." 

Visio :  "  Quae  statim  carnem  sequitur  ut  bos  ductus 

ad  victimam." 

Disputatio  :    "  Nonne  quod  vides  sequeris, 

Ut  bos  ductus  ad  victimam  ?" 

8 See  Paul  Meyer,  Documents  Manuscrits,  etc.,  pp.  7 ft. 
For  a  full  bibliography  of  Philippe  see  Chevalier,  Bio- 
bibliographie,  p.  3634. 

9  Ed.  Wright,  op.  cit.,  pp.  95  ff. 


Now  the  issue  between  the  Body  and  the  Soul 
was  as  old  as  Democritus,  and  no  religious  theme 
was  more  familiar  to  the  Middle  Ages.  Is  it  not 
natural  that  Philippe  or  another  should  have  seen 
the  issue  here  to  be  essentially  the  same  as  that 
which  underlay  the  discussion  in  the  Cligbs,  and 
should  have  framed  a  debate  on  the  well  known 
model  of  the  Visio,  giving  to  the  amatory  mate- 
rial a  theological  turn  iii  order  to  make  it  conform 
more  closely  to  the  theme  of  his  original  ? 

The  process  by  which  the  heart  and  eye  mate- 
rial came  to  take  the  form  of  a  literary  debate  is 
characteristic.  By  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century 
the  debate  had  become  established  as  a  definite 
and  popular  type,  and  this  type  afforded  a  con- 
venient mould  for  a  wide  variety  of  ideas  already 
current  in  other  forms.  Thus  the  mediaeval  alle- 
gory of  the  contest  of  the  Daughters  of  God  was 
in  one  thirteenth  century  version  developed  into 
a  regular  debate  between  Justice  and  Mercy ; 10  the 
fable  of  the  Ant  and  the  Fly  was  expanded  into 
a  contentious  dialogue  ; u  the  amatory  question  of 
the  relative  merits  of  clerks  and  soldiers  as  lovers 
was  made  the  theme  of  a  contention  between  two 
maidens,  representative  of  the  two  points  of  view.12 
In  like  manner  the  issue  between  Heart  and  Eye, 
already  familiar  as  a  subject  of  discussion,  was 
embodied,  under  the  influence  of  the  type,  in  the 
form  of  an  allegorical  dispute. 

The  numerous  manuscripts  of  the  Disputatio 
inter  Cor  et  Oculum  prove  the  work  to  have  been 
widely  known.  A  French  version  exists,13  also 
ascribed  to  Philippe  de  Greve  and  is  probably  his. 
This  poem  is  a  pretty  close  rendering  of  the  Latin, 
with  something  less  of  scholastic  subtlety  and  a 
touch  of  the  romantic  coloring  which  so  often 
appears  in  the  debates  in  their  passage  from  the 
Latin  to  the  vernacular.  Thus  the  Heart  rein- 
forces its  charge  of  treason  with  a  very  pregnant 
instance  : — 


10  See  my  note  on  the  'Scheirer  Rhythmus,'  Modern 
Language  Notes,  1909,  pp.  74  8. 

"Bonvesin  da  Riva's  "Disputatio  Muscae  cum  For- 
mica, n  Monatsberichte  der  Berliner  Akademie,  1851,  pp.  9ff. 

12  See  the  various  versions  of  the  Phyllis  and  Flora 
debate,  described  by  W.  A.  Neilson,  Origins  and  Sources 
of  the  Court  of  Love,  pp.  34  ff. 

13  The  text  is  given  by  Paul  Meyer,  Henri  d'Andeliet 
It,  Chancelier  Philippe,  Romania,  vol.  I,  pp.  202  ff. 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


163 


"  Tu  es  pire  que  Guenelon," 
Tu  es  mon  prive"  traitor, 
Car  quant  je  suis  en  garnison 
Mes  enemis  mes  en  ma  tor." 

The  only  other  example  of  the  theological  de- 
bate between  Heart  and  Eye  with  which  I  am 
familiar  is  to  be  found  in  a  curious  passage  in 
Bonevesin  da  Riva's  Debate  between  the  Body 
and  the  Soul.15  When  the  Soul  has  addressed 
the  Body  for  the  Last  time,  the  Body  reports  its 
words  to  the  members,  warning  them  one  after 
another  to  refrain  from  sin.  The  members  accuse 
the  Heart,  as  the  source  and  occasion  of  all  sin  ; 
the  Heart  throws  the  blame  upon  the  Eye,  and 
the  latter  replies  with  the  familiar  argument  that 
it  is  but  the  instrument  of  the  Heart.  This  dis- 
pute is  not,  like  the  French  poem  just  described, 
a  paraphrase  of  the  Disputatio,  but  it  evidently 
belongs  to  the  same  tradition.16  The  Debate  be- 
tween the  Body  and  the  Members  is  combined 
with  that  of  the  Body  and  the  Soul  in  a  Provencal 
poem  described  by  Batiouchkof, "  who  assumes 
for  it  a  common  origin  with  Bonevesin's  poem. 
In  the  Proven9al  debate,  however,  the  Heart  and 
Eye  motive  does  not  appear.  Its  incorporation 
by  the  Italian  into  such  a  dialogue  was  natural 
enough.  For  the  Heart  and  Eye  theme,  as 
worked  out  by  Philippe,  was  closely  associated 
with  the  Debate  of  the  Body  and  the  Soul  ;  and 
it  had  besides  a  certain  affinity  with  the  well 
known  fable  of  the  Belly  and  the  Members,  upon 
which  the  latter  part  of  the  Provei^al  poem  is 
obviously  modeled. 

In  returning  now  to  the  use  of  the  Heart  and 
Eye  motive  in  its  proper  and  presumably  original 
sphere  of  courtly  love,  it  is  necessary  to  distin- 
guish between  the  use  of  the  idea  as  a  lyric  con- 

14  This  phrase  occurs  in  the  Cligfa,  v.  1706,  not,  how- 
ever, with  reference  to  the  treason  of  the  eye. 

^Afonatsberichteder  Berliner  Akademie,  1851,  pp.  132-142. 

"The  following  verbal  parallels  may  be  quoted  : 

Bonevesin  :  "  Dal  corde  sorze  la  fontana  de  li  bon  fagi 
e  de  li  rei." 

Disputatio  :  "  De  corde  mala  prodeunt." 

Bonevesin  :  "  L'ogio  e  quel  ke  comenza." 

Disputatio  :  "Te  peccati  principium." 

Bonevesin  :  "Tu  m'he  represo  a  lorto." 

Disputatio  :  "  Iniuste  de  me  qurereris." 

17  Romania,  xx,  535  ff. 


ceit 18  and  actual  debates,  in  which  the  Heart  and 
Eye  carry  on  the  dispute.  The  two  embodiments 
of  the  question  are,  of  course,  closely  related," 
and  both  may  be  in  a  general  way  referred  to  the 
passage  in  Chrestien  discussed  above.  The  de- 
bates, however,  while  deriving  their  material  ulti- 
mately from  the  same  sources  as  the  lyrics,  not 
improbably  owe  their  special  form  to  the  influence 
of  the  Disputatio.  An  important  passage  in  Huon 
de  Meri's  Tornoiement  de  I'Antechrit20  (written 

18  For  numerous  examples  see  Modern  Language  Notes, 
1907,  p.  199,  p.  232;   1908,  pp.  126-7;   L.  F.  Mott,  The 
System  of  Courtly  Love,  pp.  85,  102,  104,  etc.;   Anna  Lii- 
deritz,  loc.  cit.,  and  W.  A.  Neilson,  op.  cit.,  pp.  26,  59, 
79,  etc.     In  one  form  or  another  the  idea  appears  again 
and  again  in  the  Elizabethan  lyric,  a  fact  which  seems  not 
to  have  been  mentioned  in  the  discussion  growing  out  of 
Shakespeare's  song  "Tell  me  where  is  fancy  bred,"  M. 
L.  N.,  loc.  cit.     Most  frequently,  perhaps,  it  is  simply  an 
expression  of  the  original  idea  that  Love  assails  the  heart 
through  the  eyes.     Cf.  Wyatt  in  Tattle's  Miscellany,  ed. 
Arbor,  p.  65 : 

"Throw  mine  eyes  the  stroke  from  hers  did  slide, 

Directly  down  into  mine  hart  it  ranne." 
In  many  passages,  however,  especially  in  the  poems  in- 
cluded in  Davison's  Poetical  Rhapsody,  the  eyes  are  ac- 
cused of  treachery  for  admitting  the  image  of  the  beloved 
to  the  heart.  Cf.  "A.  W."  in  the  Poetical  Rhapsody,  ed. 
Bullen,  vol.  n,  p.  47 : 

"  Unhappie  Eies,  the  causers  of  my  paine, 
That  to  my  foe  betrayed  my  strongest  hold, 
Wherein,  he  like  a  tyrant  now  doth  raigne, 
And  boasts  of  winning  that  which  treason  solde." 

19  It  is  sometimes  impossible  to  distinguish  between  the 
lyric  use  and  the  debate  use  of  the  theme.     Thus  in  one 
of  the  canzone  of  Guido  Guinicelli  the  problem  naturally 
takes  dialogue  form  : 

"  Dice  lo  core  agli  occhi :  Per  voi  moro. 
Gli  occhi  dicono  al  cor  :  tu  n'hai  disfatti." 

' — Nannucci's  Manuale,  ed.  1847,  p.  42. 

And  Sonnet  LXXXIV  of  Petrarch,  supposed  by  Carducci 
and  others  to  have  been  suggested  by  this  passage,  is  in 
the  form  of  a  dialogue  throughout. 
"II  poeta  :  Occhi  piangete;  accompagnate  il  core 

Che  di  vostro  fallir  morte  sostene. 
Gli  occhi :  Cosi  sempre  facciamo,  ne  convene 

1, union  tar  piu  1'altrui,  che  '1  nostro  errore. 
II  poeta  :  Gia  prima  ebbe  per  voi  1'entrata  Amore  ; 

Laonde  ancor  com'  in  suo  albergo  vene,"  etc. 

From  this  poem  to  the  Elizabethan  passages  quoted  above 
it  is  an  easy  step. 

MEd.    Wimmer,    Ausgaben    und    Abhandlungen,    vol. 
LXXVI  (1888),  vv.  2708  ff. 


164 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


in  1235  or  a  little  later)  clearly  illustrates  the 
double  influence.  In  the  course  of  the  battle 
between  the  allegorical  hosts  of  good  and  evil, 
Venus  aims  a  shaft  at  Chastity.  It  misses  its 
mark,  but  enters  the  author's  eye  and  wounds  his 
heart.  He  is  succored  by  Esperance  and  others, 
and  brings  his  case  before  ' '  the  court  which  ren- 
ders justice  to  all  lovers, ' '  in  order  to  determine 
whether  his  Heart,  the  Goddess,  or  his  Eyes  are 
to  blame  for  his  mischance.  The  judge  exonerates 
Venus  who  was  aiming  at  another,  and  accuses 
the  Eyes.  The  latter  excuse  themselves  on  the 
ground  that  they  do  nothing  without  the  Heart's 
command.  At  this  point  Reason  appears  and 
decides  the  case  against  the  Heart. 

In  this  passage  we  have  the  Heart  and  Eye 
problem  for  the  first  time  introduced  as  a  part  of 
the  allegory  of  the  Court  of  Love.  The  dispute 
is  represented  as  actual,  not  merely  speculative, 
and  the  Eyes  reply  in  their  own  persons.  That 
Huon  had  in  mind  the  similar  discussion  by  his 
master  Chrestien  cannot  be  doubted  ;  for  he  refers 
to  him  a  little  earlier  for  a  full  account  of  the 
•wounding  of  the  Heart  through  the  Eye.21  What 
is  equally  clear,  though  it  seems  not  to  have  been 
pointed  out,  is  that  in  every  respect  except  the 
application  of  the  dispute  to  love,  Huon's  imme- 
diate model  was  the  Latin  debate  of  Philippe  de 
Greve.  This  treason,  says  the  judge,  should  be 
laid  upon  the  eyes, 

"  Qu'il  reyurent  a  porte  overte 
Sans  contredit  ton  aversier 
El  chastel,  dont  il  sont  portier." 

In  the  Disputatio  the  Heart  says  to  the  Eye  : 

"  Tu  domus  meae  janitor 
Hosti  non  claudis  ostium  ; 
Admittis  adversarium. 
Nonne  fenestra  diceris 
Qua  mors  intrat  ad  animam  ? ' ' 

And  finally  the  decision  of  Reason  is  rendered  in 
language  clearly  suggested  by  the  Latin  poem  : 

"  A  cest  mot  vi  venir  reson  : 
L'aine*e  file  sapience 
La  definitive  sentence 

11  Max  Grebel  in  his  dissertation  on  the  sources  of  the 
Tornoiement,  Le  Tornoiemcnl  Antechrist,  etc.,  Leipzig, 
1883,  p.  87,  cites  Yvain  1369,  but  the  reference  is  obvi- 
ously to  the  Cligte. 


Kent  et  ront  la  despoitison 

Et  dist :  '  Li  cuers  fu  1'achoison 

Du  mal  qu'il  a.     Plus  en  doit  estre 

Blame'z  que  nus,  qui  la  fenestre 

Lessa  overte  comme  fous 

Par  ou  li  descendi  li  cous 

Du  fer.  dont  il  garra  a  tart." 

"  Ratio  litem  amputat 
Definitive  calculo 
Utrumque  reum  reputat, 
Sed  non  pari  periculo, 
Nam  cordi  causam  imputat, 
Occasionem  oculo."  !2 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the  conception  of 
the  eyes  as  porters  of  the  castle  of  the  soul,  which 
becomes  a  common  feature  in  the  Court  of  Love 
allegories,  was  already  present  in  the  Disputatio. 

The  French  Debat  du  Cuer  et  de  V  Oeil,™  while 
belonging  to  the  allegorical  type  represented  by 
Huon  de  Meri,  differs  from  the  passage  in  the 
Tornoiement  in  that  the  dispute  with  its  causes 
and  results  constitutes  the  main  theme  of  the 
poem,  while  the  Heart  and  not  a  third  party 
makes  the  accusation  against  the  Eyes.  The 
author,  who  is  out  hunting  one  May  morning, 
comes  unexpectedly  upon  a  fair  company  of 
ladies  and  is  stricken  with  love  longing.  He  lies 
down  to  sleep  and  hears,  on  two  different  occasions 
a  dispute  between  his  Heart  and  his  Eye.  To  the 
charge  of  having  been  the  ca*use  of  this  unwonted 
pain,  the  Eye  replies  that  it  loves  only  by  the 
counsel  of  the  Heart.  The  two  at  length  agree  to 
submit  the  matter  to  Ardent  Desire,  the  marshal 
of  Love.  A  trial  by  combat  follows  before  the 
Court  of  Love,  but  Pity  intervenes,  and  compels 
them  to  bring  their  cause  before  Venus.  The 
goddess  hears  a  third  and  quite  superfluous  repe- 
tition of  the  arguments,  and  adjourns  the  case 
until  she  can  get  the  opinions  of  all  lovers,  bid- 
ding the  contestants  meanwhile  perform  all  the 
services  of  Love. 

The  elements  common  to  this  poem  and  Huon's 
Tornoiement  are  certainly  striking,  but  it  is  im- 

22  There  is  nothing  corresponding  to  this  passage  in  the 
French  paraphrase  of  the  Dispulatio  ;  hence  Huon  must 
have  used  the  original. 

23  Thomas  Wright,  op.  cit.,  pp.  310  ff.    Miss  Hammond, 
loc.  cit.,  calls  attention  to  a  displacement  of  several  stanzas 
in  the  MS.  used  by  Wright.     Another  French  text,  in 
which  the  stanzas  are  correctly  arranged,  is  printed  in  the 
Jardin  de  Plaisance. 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


165 


possible  in  the  absence  of  detailed  evidence  to 
establish  a  direct  relation  between  them.  In  the 
subordination  of  the  actual  dispute  to  the  alle- 
gorical narrative  both  Huon  and  the  author  of 
the  Debat  are  following  a  practice  which  is  almost 
universal  with  the  writers  of  vernacular  debates. 
These  poets  care  but  little  for  the  scholastic  prob- 
lem at  issue,  and  with  them  the  discussion  loses 
most  or  all  of  its  dialectical  subtlety.  Thus  Huon 
fails  to  preserve  the  distinction  between  cause  and 
occasion  so  carefully  made  by  Philippe ;  and  in 
the  Debat  du  Cuer  et  de  I'  Oeil  the  answers  of  the 
Eye  are  generally  beside  the  point,  while  the  ac- 
cusations of  the  Heart  partake  of  the  nature  of 
' '  complaints. ' '  The  introduction  and  conclusion, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  made  much  of.  The  refer- 
ence of  the  dispute  to  a  judge  or  tribunal  "  affords 
an  opportunity  for  elaborate  allegory  which  is  not 
often  neglected.  Trial  by  battle,  which  frequently 
follows,  allows  the  poet  to  devote  his  best  energies 
to  the  description  of  a  tournament.  The  quarrel 
has  been  transferred  from  the  school  room  to  the 
open  air;  the  disputation  has  become  a  "debate" 
in  the  sense  of  physical  conflict. 

The  English  Debate  of  Heart  and  Eye  printed 
by  Miss  Hammond  offers  few  points  of  special  in- 
terest. It  is,  as  its  editor  has  pointed  out,  a  fairly 
close  rendering  of  the  French  Debat.  The  origi- 
nal octosyllabic  stanza  (ababbcbc)  has  been  ex- 
panded into  a  ten  syllable  form  with  the  same 
rhyme  scheme  (Cf.  Chaucer's  Monk's  Tale),  and 
thanks  to  the  joint  efforts  of  the  author,  the 
translator,  and  the  scribe,  the  poem  is  something 
worse  than  pedestrian.  It  was  evidently  thought 
worthy  of  reproduction,  however,  as  it  exists  in  an 
early  print  of  Wynken  de  Worde.25  Both  the 
English  Debate  and  its  French  original  belong  to 
the  fifteenth  century. 

I  am  not  aware  of  the  existence  of  any  later 
versions  of  this  dispute  in  English.  There  are, 

"The  Court  of  Love  allegory  appears  in  combination 
with  the  debate  in  at  least  one  Latin  poem,  the  Altercaiio 
Phillidis  et  Florae,  ed.  Haure"au,  Notices  etExtraits,  vol.vi, 
pp.  278  fl. ;  but  this  piece,  in  spite  of  the  accident  of  its 
language,  belongs  to  the  literature  of  romance.  In  a  later 
vernacular  version  entitled  Melior  et  Idoine,  ed.  Meyer, 
Romania,  xv,  333,  the  dispute  ends  in  a  judicial  combat. 

24  The  first  stanza  is  quoted  by  Warton,  History  of  Eng- 
lish Poetry,  1840  ed.,  vol.  n,  p.  388.  See  also  Wright, 
op.  cit.,  Intro,  xxiii. 


however,  a  number  of  Elizabethan  lyric  dialogues 
which  may  be  said  to  have  at  least  a  psychological 
connection  with  the  debates  discussed.  In  Davi- 
son's  Poetical  Rhapsody  there  are  two  dialogues 
between  the  Lover  and  his  Heart,  l«  a  "Proso- 
popoeia," in  which  the  Lover's  Heart  addresses 
the  Breast  of  his  second  Lady,"  and  a  Dialogue 
between  the  Lover's  Flaming  Heart  and  his 
Ladle's  Frozen  Breast.28  These  pieces,  if  not 
derivatives  from  the  Heart  and  Eye  debate,  are 
certainly,  like  the  Dialogue  between  the  Soul  and 
the  Body  contained  in  the  same  collection,"  late 
echoes  of  the  mediaeval  debate  in  general.  The 
tradition  of  the  literary  dispute  may  be  said  to 
have  persisted  into  the  Elizabethan  period  in  full 
vigor.  It  appears  in  such  familiar  works  as 
Robert  Green's  Quip  for  an  Upstart  Courtier, 
with  its  verse  original,50  was  frequently  employed 
in  dramatic  entertainments,  crops  out  again  and 
again  in  the  regular  drama,  and  forms  one  of  the 
staples  of  the  broadside  literature  of  the  day. 


Simmons  College. 


JAMES  HOLLY  HANFORD. 


ETYMOLOGICAL  NOTES 

1.  NE.  bluster  '  blow  boisterously  ;  be  loud, 
noisy,  or  swaggering,'  subst.  '  the  noise  of  a  storm 
or  of  violent  wind,  blast,  gust  ;  tumultuous  noise; 
noisy  but  empty  talk  or  menace '  may  be  referd 
to  Germ,  bltist-  'swell,  blow.'  Next  akin  are 
EastFries.  bluster  'Wind,  frische  Brise,'  blus- 
tern  '  mit  Gerausch  wehen.  stiirmen,  brausen ' 
(Koolman,  Wb.  der  ostfries.  Spr.  I,  193),  Du. 
dial,  bluisterig  '  windig '  (Draaijer,  Deventersch 
Dial.  5),  bluisterg  'gusty'  (Molema,  Wb.  der 
groning  Mundart  39),  NWestFries.  bluist (enrich 
'  u'ppig,  bliihend  ;  lustig,  aufgeweckt  ;  glanzend  ; 
windig,  gerauschvoll,  wild,  ungestum '  (Friesch 
Wdb.  i,  201). 

26  Ed.  Bullen,  vol.  n,  pp.  8  and  21.  The  latter  ia  by 
Thomas  Watson. 

"  Vol.  i,  p.  126.  »VoLi,  p.  132. 

29  Vol.  n,  p.  96.     The  author  is  "  A.  W." 

80  The  Debate  between  Pride  and  Lowliness,  by  Francis 
Thynne,  edited  by  J.  Payne  Collier,  Shakespeare  Society, 
1841. 


166 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  JVo.  6. 


These  are  closely  related  in  form  and  meaning 
toNE.  blister  (OE.  *blystre}  'Blase,'  Early  Du. 
bluyster  '  pustula,  pustula  in  panis  crusto  assur- 
geiis,'  bluysteren  '  adurere,  retorrere '  (Kilian  i, 
74),  Hess,  blustern  '  Blasen  treiben  ;  Brot  oder 
Kuchen  blustert,  wenn  der  Teig  in  einen  zu  heis- 
sen  Ofen  kommt  u.  deshalb  alsbald  in  grossen 
Blasen  auffahrt'  (Vilmar,  Id.  von  Kurhessen  45). 

The  IE.  root  is  bhleu- :  Gk.  <j>\t(a  '  overflow ; 
babble, '  <£Avo>  '  swell  over,  overflow,  bubble  or 
boil  over ;  babble, '  <}>\VKTI<;  '  blister, '  <£Av8ao> 
'have  an  excess  of  moisture,  become  soft  or 
flabby,'  ON.  blautr  'wet,  moist,  soft,  weak'  etc. 
(cf.  author,  IE.  a%:axi:  a$u  53). 

2.  NE.  evil  repi'esents  ME.  evel  and  yvel  in 
Northern,  Midland,  and  Southern  dialects.     It  is 
probable,  therefore,   that  we   have  two   different 
words:    OE.    yfel    'wicked,    evil,'     Goth,    ubils 
'u'bel,'   etc.,   and    OE.   *ejele    'bold,   bad,'  with 
which  compare  MHG.  (md. )  evel  '  stolz  vermes- 
sen,'   vor-evil,  -ebil,  vir-ebel,  byforms  of  MHG. 
vrevel,   vrebel,  vrabel  'ruckhaltlos  ku'hn,  gefahr- 
lich  iibermiitig,  gewaltsam  das  Recht  verletzend,' 
MLG.  vrevel  '  ku'hn,  frech,  bose, '  OHG.  fravali, 
frevili  etc,,  derivativs  of  ON.  afl  'Kraft,  Starke, 
Hiilfe,'  OE. 'a/o/ '  might,   strength,'  and  related 
to  Goth,  abrs  '  stark,  heftig, '  IE.  base  op-  in  Lat. 
ops    'might,    strength;    welth  ;    help,'    etc^.    (cf. 
Kluge,  Et.  Wb.  s.  v.  Frevel  ;   Weigand,  Wb.6 1, 
584  ;  Walde,  Et.  Wb.  434).     Compare  the  fol- 
lowing. 

3.  OS.  frobra,  frofra  'Trost,'   OHG.  fluobra 
'  consolatio, '  fluobiren  '  consolari'  (with  I  by  dis- 
similation),  OE.  fro/or  'consolation,   help,  joy,' 
frofrian,  frefran  'comfort,  console'  contain  Germ. 
*fr-obr-  from  fra  -f-  obr-,  with   which   compare 
OHG.  frabarl    'audacia'    from    *frabar,  Germ. 
fr-abra- :  Goth,    abrs-    'stark,    heftig,'    ON.   0/r 

(*o6ia-)    'gewaltig,    heftig,'    Lat.    ops    'power, 
strength,  help,'  etc.     Cp.  no.  2. 

4.  Tyrol,    loabelen    'zogernd,    langsam    tun,' 
loabeler    'matter,    langsamer    Mensch,'    loabelet 
'matt,    kraftlos'    (Schopf,    Tirolisches  Id.  359) 
represent  MHG.  *leib-,  Germ.  *laib-,  with  which 
compare  OS.  lef  '  schwach,  gebrechlich, '   OE.  lef 
'  infirm,    diseased,   ill  ;    damage,    harm, '    gelefed 
'weak,  old,'  lefung  'paralysis,'  Germ.  *leb-  pre- 
Germ.  *leibh-.     With  these  I  connect  ChSl.  li- 
bivti,  '  gracilis, '   Lith.  l&ibas  '  schlank  '  ( IE.  a*  : 


axi:axu  40)  and  also  MHG.  lip  'Leib,'  pri- 
marily 'flank,  side,  Weiche '  (MLN.  xxiv,  49). 
NE.  loaf  '  idle  away  one's  time,  lounge,  daw- 
dle '  agrees  in  meaning  with  Tyrol,  loabelen 
'zogernd,  langsam  tun.'  But  we  should  expect 
NE.  *loave  instead  of  loaf. 

5.  ON.   lilcame,    OE.  llcuma  '  body, '  OFries. 
llkma,  OHG.  llhhamo,  llhmo  'Korper*  represent 
a  Germ,  stem  *lik(a~)man-  'Gleichnis,  Ebenbild, 
Gestalt,'  corresponding   exactly   to   Lith.   lygmu 
'Ebenbild.'     The  byforms,    OE.    lichoma,    OS. 
llkhamo,  OFries.   likkoma,  lichama,  etc.,  are  due 
to  confusion   with   actual   compounds  of   Germ. 
haman-,  as  OE.  flcesc-hama  'body';    and  OHG. 
llhhinamo,  llhnamo  may  be  regarded  as  a  blend 
of  Germ,  llkman-  and  likan-  in  Goth,  man-leika 
'Bild,'    ON.    like  '  Ahnlichkeit  ;  Ausseres,   aus- 
sere  Schonheit  ;  Gestalt  ;  Leiche.' 

6.  OHG.  reh  'Reh,'   Germ,  raiha-,   ON.  rd, 
OE.  rah-,  NE.  roe,  MDu. ,  Du.  ree,  etc.  are  from 
pre-Germ.  *roiko-  'striped,  streaked.'     Compare 
Skt.  rekha  'Riss,  Strich,  Linie,  Streifen,  Reihe,' 
OHG.  rl he  '  Reihe, '  etc. ,  and,  for  meaning,  Skt. 
pr$nis  '  gesprenkelt,  bunt,  scheckig, '  Gk.  TT/SOKCIS, 
7rp6£  '  a  kind  of  deer  or  roe. ' 

The  above  group  together  with  the  words  in  no. 
7  may  be  referd  to  the  root  m-  in  Skt.  ri-ti-s 
'  Lauf  ;  Strom;  Strich,'  rinati  'lasst  laufen,' 
vi-rmdti  'zertrennt,  durchhaut,'  ON.  rein 
'Streifen  Land,'  OHG.  rein  'Rain,'  Lith. 
ramas  '  graubunt  gestreift. ' 

7.  ON.  reik  '  Scheitellinie,  welche  die  Haare 
teilt '    (Mobius  342),  Norw.  reik  '  stribe,  linie  ; 
isa3r  :  blis,  stribe  i  panden  paa  dyr  ;    skille-linie 
haaret  paa  mennesker,  en  linie  imellem  pandeu 
og  issepunktet,  hvorfra  haaret  skiller  sig  til  sid- 
erue  ;   en  skille-fure  imellem  to  afdelinger  i  en 
ager'  (Aasen,  Norsk  Ordbog  591),  'stribe  paa  et 
dyrs  side,  afbarket  stribe  paa  tree'    (Ross,  NO. 
595),  Swed.  dial,  raik,  rek  'Scheitellinie'  (Rietz 
521)  are  related  to  Lith.  rezis  '  Einschnitt,  Ritze, 
Schramme,  Streifen  durch  blosse  Raine  abgeteilten 
Ackers,  wo  die  Felder  gemeinsam  liegen,'  rezys 
'Riss,    Strich  auf  der  Erde,'  reziu,  freq.  rdizau 
1  schneide,  ritze,  reisse. '     Compare  no.  6. 

8.  OE.  spala,  gespelia  '  substitute,  representa- 
tiv,'  spelian  'act  as  representativ  of,  take  one's 
place,'  NE,  spell  'take  the  place  of,  take  turns 
with,'  spell  'a  turn  of  work  or  duty  in  place  of 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


167 


another,  an  interval  of  relief  by  another  person  ; 
an  interval  of  time  within  definit  limits,  a 
short  period,  interval '  have  no  connection  in 
meaning  with  OE.  spilian,  OHG.  spilon  'spielen,' 
and  the  two  groups  of  words  do  not  agree  fonet- 
icly.  The  meaning  '  interval  ;  short  period ' 
probably  comes  from  'space.'  In  that  case  the 
words  may  be  derived  from  the  IE.  root  sphe- 
1  stretch '  in  Lat.  spatium  '  space,  time '  etc. 

9.  Goth,  spillon  '  verkiindigen,  erzahlen, '  OE. 
spellian  '  announce,  tell, '  OHG.  spellon  '  erzah- 
len ;  reden,  schwatzen,'  MDu.  spellen  'explanare, 
declarare  ad  minima  usque  elementa  ;  articulatim 
enucleare '  (Kilian)  evidently  go  back  to  the  pri- 
mary   meaning  '  separate,  spred    abroad, '    '  zer- 
teilen,  auseinandersetzen,  auslegen.'  They  may  be 
referd  to  pre-Germ.  spel-na-,  -no-,  IE.  root  sphel- 
'  split,  scatter ' :  Skt.  sphdlayati  '  schlagt  auf ;  zer- 
reisst,'  phdlati  'springt  entzwei,  berstet,'  sphutdti 
'springt  auf,  spaltet  sich,'  OHG.  spaltan  'spal- 
teu.'  MLG.  spilden  '  verschwenden  ;  verschiitten, ' 
OE.  spildan  '  destroy '  etc. 

For  meaning  cp.  Skt.  ddlati  'berstet,  springt 
auf,'  dalayati  '  macht  bersten,  spaltet,'  Lith. 
dalyti  'teilen,'  Ir.  fo-ddlim  'discerno,  sejungo,' 
ON.  tal  (  Zahl,  Aufzahlung,  Rede,'  telia  'zahlen, 
erzahlen, '  etc. ;  MHG.  schlden  'scheiden  ;  deuten, 
auslegen,'  geschlde  'gescheit.' 

10.  NE.  toddle  '  walk  feebly,  walk  with  short, 
tottering  steps'  is  given  in  the  Cent.  Diet,  as  "  a 
var.  of  tottle,  perhaps  influenced  by  some  associa- 
tion with  waddle."     All  this  may  be  true,  for 
synonymous  words  often  do  influence  each  other. 
But  in  its  formation  toddle  can  certainly  lay  claim 
to  a  considerable  age,  for  it  is  also  found  in  other 
Germ,  dialects.    Compare  Westf.  toddeln  '  schlep- 
pend  gehen,'  Bav.,  Tyrol,  zotteln  'langsam,  trage 
gehen,'    frequentativs   of  Bav.    zotten   '  laugsam 
gehen,'  EFries.   todden  'ziehen,  schleppen,  tra- 
gen,'  MHG.  zoten  'langsam  gehen.'     These  are 
from  the  same  Germ,  base  as  NHG.  zaudern,  LG. 
(Pruss.)  toddern  '  zogern,  laugsam  handeln,' OE. 
tledre  'weak,  frail,  fleeting,  transitory,'  etc.,  from 
the  primary   meaning    'pull,    tug,    drag   along, 
zogern. ' 

Here  also  belong  OHG.  zota  '  Zotte '  (compare 
NHG.  zupfen  :  Zopf),  Tyrol,  zottlet  '  nachlassigen 
Anzugs,'  zottler  '  Mann  von  zottigem  Aussehen,' 
Westf.  toddelig  '  schlotternd,  schlotterig  ange- 


zogen,'  Bav.  zottern  '  niederhangen  wie  Haare,' 
etc.  (cf.  author,  MLN.  xvi,  18  ;  IE.  w.ati:  CPU 
71). 

FRANCIS  A,  WOOD. 

University  of  Chicago. 


THE  BALLAD  OF  THE  DEN  OF  LIONS 

The  ballad  of  The  Den  of  Lions  had  not  been 
noted  as  current  in  America  until  Professor 
Shearin  published  a  Kentucky  version  of  it  in 
the  April  number  of  this  journal.  The  ballad 
was  an  especial  favorite  with  Professor  Child  on 
account  of  its  diverting  absurdity.  He  had  re- 
ceived two  Scottish  versions  derived  from  recita- 
tion,— one  taken  down  in  Old  Deer  about  1873 
by  Mrs.  A.  F.  Murison  (Murison  MS.,  Harvard 
College  Library,  fols.  14-16),  the  other  con- 
tributed by  Mr.  William  Macmath  (Macmath 
MS.,  p.  53).  He  had  also  noted  the  occurrence 
of  the  ballad  in  one  of  Bishop  Percy's  broadsides,1 
in  Buchan's  Mss.,2  in  the  Kinloch  MSS. ,s  and  in 
Christie's  Traditional  Ballad  Airs.4  It  is  likewise 
found  in  one  of  Morren's  Edinburgh  garlands, 
'where  it  is  entitled  ' '  The  Bostonshire  Lady. ' '  5 

Professor  Belden,  in  The  Sewanee  Review  for 
April,  prints  a  Catnach  broadside  text  and  refers 
to  a  version  still  current  in  Somerset.'  The  story 
of  the  glove  and  the  lions  (as  Romance  scholars 
know,  and  as  Professor  Child  was  well  aware) 
occurs  in  Spain  as  early  as  the  sixteenth  century.7 
How  much  older  it  is,  quien  sabe  f 

1  Vol.  I,  no.  69  (Harvard  College  Library). 

*I,  432  (British  Museum,  Add.  MS.  29408).  There  is 
a  transcript  of  this  manuscript,  as  well  as  of  the  Macmath 
MS.,  in  the  Harvard  College  Library.  In  another  large 
manuscript  in  Buchan's  hand,  known  as  "  Buchan's 
Original  Ms."  (Harvard),  the  piece  does  not  occur. 

8  vi,  43  (Harvard  College  Library). 

•11,  127  (Edinburgh,  1881). 

5  "Three  Excellent  New  Songs.  The  Bostonshire  Lady. 
The  Parson's  Fat  Wedder.  The  Hopeless  Lovers.     Edin- 
burgh :   printed  by  J.  Morren"  (Harvard  College  Li- 
brary, 25252.  19,  no.  21). 

6  Sharp  and  Marson,  Folk  Songs  from  Somerset,  3d  Series, 
1906,  pp.  4-6  (no.  56).     The  editors  cite  Ashton,  Real 
Sailor  Songs,  p.  54. 

7  See  Wolf  and  Hofmann,  Primavera  y  Flor,  No.  134, 
n,  45-48. 


168 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


The  Percy  broadside  (without  date  or  place)  is 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  title  runs,  ' '  The 
Distressed  Lady  ;  Or,  A  Trial  of  True  Love.  In 
Five  Parts."  This  version  is  very  long,  extend- 
ing to  fifty-five  stanzas.  The  lady  lives  ' '  near 
Saint  James's"  and  the  den  of  lions  is  in  the 
Tower.  The  lieutenant's  valor  is  set  in  bolder 
relief  by  the  statement  that  he  had  lost  a  leg  in 
the  wars.  The  Murison  version  keeps  London, 
but  drops  the  Tower  ;  those  of  Macmath  and 
Christie  drop  Saint  James's,  but  keep  the  Tower. 
Buchan's  text  localizes  the  incident  at  Dalkeith, 
Morren'  s  refers  it  to  "  Bostonshire. ' ' 

The  accidents  of  oral  transmission  are  beauti- 
fully illustrated  by  the  third  stanza  of  the  Ken- 
tucky version  printed  by  Professor  Shearin  : — 

One  he  was  a  bold  lieutenant, 

A  man  of  honor  and  of  high  degree  ; 

The  other  was  a  brave  sea-captain, 
Belonging  to  a  ship  called  Karnel  Call. 

Karnel  Call  is  a  queer  name  for  a  ship.     The 
Percy  broadside  reads,  however  : — 

One  bought  a  captain's  commission, 
Under  the  brave  Colonel  Carr, 

The  other  was  a  first  lieutenant 
In  the  Tyger  man  of  war. 

Macmath' s  and  Christie's  texts  preserve  "Col- 
onel Car";  Kinloch's  has  "Colonel  Carr." 
Buchan's  text  reads  "Underneath  a  colonel's 
care."  The  Murison  MS.  has  : — "  The  one  o' 
them  was  a  noble  captain,  An'  in  below  a  Colo- 
nel's care."  The  Morren  text  makes  both  suitors 
naval  officers  : — 

The  oldest  brother  he  was  a  captain, 
on  board  with  the  honour' d  Capt  Ker  ; 

The  youngest  brother  he  was  a  lieutenant, 
on  board  the  Tyger-Man-of-War. 

I  subjoin  the  Murison  version,  as  it  is  vastly 
amusing  and  somewhat  fuller  than  that  from 
Kentucky. 

THE  FAIREST  LADY  IN  LONDON  CITY 

1  The  fairest  lady  in  London  City, 

Her  portion  was  twelve  thousands  pounds ; 
And  many  a  one  went  that  lady  awooin', 
But  a'  their  offers  she  did  disdain. 

2  She  has  sworn  it  oe'r  an'  o'er 

That  no  man  should  her  husband  be, 
Except  he  was  a  man  o'  honour 
An'  could  both  fecht  upon  Ian'  and  sea. 


3  Two  sons  of  a  squire,  two  loving  brothers, 

Went  to  woo  that  lady  fair, 
For  to  woo  her,  an'  to  pursue  her, 
An'  for  to  gain  her  was  a'  their  care. 

4  The  one  o'  them  was  a  noble  captain 

An'  in  below  a  Colonel's  care  ; 
The  other  was  a  bold  lieutenant 
Aboard  a  frigate,  a  man-o'-war. 

5  Got  it  speaks  that  gallant  lady  : 

' '  I  canna  be  but  ae  man's  bride  ; 
But  ye'  11  come  back  to-morrow  mornin' 
An'  soon  the  matter  I  will  decide." 

6  That  lovin'  brothers  walked  home  together, 

Thinkin'  on  their  dreadful  doom, — 
Which  of  them  was  to  gain  her  favour 
An'  which  of  them  was  to  gain  her  frown. 

7  Early,  early  the  next  mornin', 

Early  by  the  break  o'  day, 
Her  coach  an'  six  was  soon  made  ready 
To  bear  that  gallant  lady  away. 

8  Until  she  came  to  a  den  o'  lions, 

Which  struck  the  lady  in  a  swoon, 
An'  for  the  space  o'  half  an  hour 
It's  she  lay  speechless  on  the  groun'. 

9  When  she  had  her  speech  recovered, 

She  threw  her  fan  into  the  den, 
Says,  "  Which  of  you  to  gain  a  lady 
Can  bring  that  fan  to  me  again?" 

10  It's  oot  it  speaks  the  noble  captain, 

"  It's  all  your  offers  I  do  disown. 
You'  ve  many  dangers  laid  therewith, 
An'  I'll  never  venture  my  life  for  none." 

11  "I  was  never  called  a  coward, 

Never  upon  land  nor  sea  ; 
But  for  to  fecht  wi'  brutes  an'  teegers, 
It  is  a  thing  I  will  never  dee," 

12  But  oot  it  speaks  the  bold  lieutenant, 

And  a  brisk  young  boy  was  he, 
Says,  "  Lady,  here  is  the  man  o'  honour 

That  will  bring  your  fan,  or  else  he'll  dee."  8 

13  It's  when  he  entered  the  den  o'  lions, 

They  looked  at  him  both  fierce  and  grim ; 
But  he  was  none  i'  the  least  adaunted, 
But  looked  to  them  as  fierce  again. 

14  He  walked  doon  thro'  the  den  o'  lions, 

An'  two  o'  them  he  made  his  prey  ; 
And  when  they  saw  that  his  blood  was  royal, 
Doon  amongst  his  feet  they  lay. 

8  Variant :  That's  careless  whether  he' 11  live  or  dee. 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


169 


15  He  loot  him  doon,  an'  took  up  her  fan, 

With  great  composure,  but  no  dismay  ; 
An'  the  lady  in  her  coach  lay  trem'lin', 
Lest  to  the  lions  he'd  become  a  prey. 

16  But  when  she  saw  that  he  was  returnin', 

An'  that  no  harm  unto  him  was  done, 
With  open  arms  she  embraced  him, 
Says,  "  Take  the  prize  ye  hae  dearly  won." 

17  It's  oot  it  speaks  the  faint-hearted  captain, 

Like  one  that  was  deranged  in  mind, 
Says,  "I'll  wander  hopeless  in  some  desert, 
Since  in  this  world  I'll  no  comfort  find." 

18  When  the  king  he  got  word  o'  that, 

That  two  of  his  lions  had  been  slain, 
He  was  none  o'  the  least  offended, 
But  made  him  a  captain  for  the  same. 


G.    L.    KlTTREDGE. 


Harvard  University. 


THE  MYSTERY  PLAYS  AND  THE 
NORTHERN  PASSION 

Students  of  the  Early  English  drama  will  be 
interested  to  know  that  a  direct  source  for  four 
of  the  Towueley  plays  exists  in  a  Middle  English 
poem,  which  must  have  been  composed  in  the  first 
half  of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  poem  in 
question  is  the  Northern  Passion,  as  Horstmann  l 
terms  it,  which  relates  the  story  of  the  Passion 
from  the  Conspiracy  of  the  Jews  and  the  supper 
at  Simon  the  Leper's,  to  the  Resurrection,  and 
the  bribing  of  the  guards  who  watched  the  tomb, 
— from  first  to  last  about  3500  lines.  The  paral- 
lels with  the  Towneley  text  are  of  two  kinds.  In 
the  first  place,  there  is  at  certain  points  a  general 
similarity  of  outline,  the  play  following  more  or 
less  exactly  the  order  of  events  suggested  by  the 
Passion.  This  correspondence  is  in  itself  hardly 

1Altenglische  Legenden,  Neue  Folge,  pp.  Ixvi  and  Ixxxi. 
Portions  of  the  Passion  have  already  been  printed  from 
Harleian  4196 :  Horstmann  published  the  part  dealing 
with  the  Entombment  and  the  Kesurrection  in  Herrig's 
Archiv  LVII,  78-83 ;  and  E.  Morris,  the  part  containing 
the  "  The  Story  of  the  Holy  Kood  "  in  Legends  of  the  Holy 
Rood,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  46,  pp.  62-86.  The  passages  quoted 
below  have  never  before  been  printed.  The  term  Northern 
Passion  is  used  merely  for  convenience,  not  as  indicating 
the  region  where  the  poem  arose. 


close  enough  to  be  significant  ;  but,  in  the  second 
place,  we  find  also  the  more  striking  occurrence 
of  verbal  borrowing,  extending  even  to  rime. 
The  parallels  are  found  in  the  four  plays  which 
deal  with  the  Crucifixion  and  the  events  imme- 
diately preceding  and  following  it,  namely,  num- 
bers xx,  xxn,  xxin,  and  xxvi.  Inasmuch  as 
the  whole  matter  must  be  worked  over  in  fuller 
detail  than  is  here  possible,  I  shall  not  attempt 
to  give  an  exhaustive  list  of  parallels.  A  com- 
parison of  the  Towneley  text  with  the  passages 
printed  below  will,  however,  suffice  to  show  the 
presence  of  verbal  borrowing  with  rime.  I  have 
not  thought  it  necessary  to  reprint  the  Towneley 
text  itself,  as  it  is  easily  accessible,  but  I  have 
displayed  in  italics  the  more  striking  agreements 
in  phrase,  and  have  referred  in  the  margin  to  the 
corresponding  Towneley  lines  according  to  the 
numbering  in  the  E.  E.  T.  S.  edition.2  The  first 
and  last  passages  are  quoted  from  MS.  Cotton 
Tiberius  E  vn,  dated  by  Horstmann*  (in  the  last 
half  of  fourteenth  century)  with  which,  in  gen- 
eral, the  Towneley  text  agrees  more  closely. 
Where  this  MS.  was  rendered  illegible  by  the  Cot- 
tonian  fire  I  supply  in  brackets  readings  from 
Harleian  4196  (first  half  of  fifteenth  century),4 
which  Horstmann  thinks  is  a  direct  copy  from 
Cot.  Tib.  E  vii.  In  the  second  passage,  how- 
ever, I  have  chosen  instead  Cambridge  University 
MS.  Gg.  1.  1  (first  half  of  fourteenth  century),  to 
which  in  this  play  the  Towneley  lines  exhibit  spe- 
cial resemblances. 


The  passage  which  follows  is  to  be  compared 
with  Towneley  xx,  lines  250-281  : 

262  Doune  scho  fell  and  wesche  his  fete  (fol.  165T.) 

258  With  f>e  teres  fxit  scho  grete  ; 

259  And  sefiin  scho  dried  />am  with  hir  hare, 
254-5  And  for  hir  sins  scho  murned  save.6 

1  Edited  by  George  England  and  A.  W.  Pollard, 
vol.  LXXI. 

*Altenglische  Legenden,  Neue  Folge,  p.  Lxxix. 

4Cf.  W.  H.  Hulme  :  M.  E.  Harrowing  of  Hell,  E.  E.  T. 
S.,  Ext.  Ser.  C,  p.  xxvi. 

5  Although  this  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  sources  of 
the  Passion,  it  may  be  pointed  out  in  passing  that  there  is 
here  verbal  reminiscence  of  the  Cursor  Mundi,  E.  E.  T. 
S.  62,  lines  14008-14011  of  the  Gottingen  MS.  : 


170                                            MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES.  [Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 

256  Ane  oynement  with  hir  seho  broght  (fol.  166r.)  jy 
254,  257  bat  was  of  precyus  things  wroght, 

And  Karwith  scho enc-ynted  him,  The               e  which  m^s  jg  to  be             ftred 

(Als  men  may  find  bifor  )>is  tyme  r 

In  >e  last  godspell  saue  ane,  to  hike,  Wlth  Towneley  XX,  314-329  : 

>at  set  es  bifore  in  MS  buke  ; 

,    ,    .     ,    ,  His  disciples  he  tok  him  ner  (fol.  123r.) 
Bot  proces  clerly  to  declare, 

IT      r  — .11    ••                        ^  And axic*  "im  Wlt*1  veir  chere, 
Here  I  sail  rit  muster  mare. ) 

_-,  „    ,,      ,             .1-1      j      jj,  314      Sire,  wer  woltu  nolde  bi  feste  / 7 
261-2  Als  scho  enoynt  him  heued  and  fete 

«*rt   i    j  i_         JL-      t-   JL  7    iii  We  wol  go  criem  most  and  leste. 
260  And  honord  him  hir  bales  to  bete, 

^1.     i 1  11     -j  Ihesu  Answerd  son  anon, 
J>e  oynement  went  obout  full  wide 

T    ,     ,              .,,         i  316  And  cliped  to  him  petir  and  whan : 

In  J>e  hows  on  ilka  syde.  f 

316  "  Goth,"  he  seid,  "  ye  sschulle  mete 

ludas,  als  we  haue  herd  here,  31g  A  man  faiU)r  •„  ^  8<rcte>8 

when  J>ai  sat  at  )>aire  sopere  320  ^  houg  ^  he  goth  ^  ^  ^ 

Al  samen  in  simondes  leprows  [hall],  321   F<,  ^^  A{m/0^e  and  ^  ^ 

And  Mari  to  iheau  fete  gan  f  [all]  322  ^  lwd  of  ^  h(m8  w  sscM  tfinde 

with  hir  vnement  [precyows]  323  A  simple  mm  of  gdi  kind^ 

264   (Jx  odore  went  o[uer  al  foe  hows)],  324  TQ  him  ye  gschul  ^  and  ^ 

t»an  ludas  thoght,  als  [it  es  kend],  325  M  C 

J>at  Hs  vnement  w [as  euill  despende] ;  329  j  wd 

270  And  said  bat  it  sul[d  haue  bene  salde'] ,  32g  And 

271  Thre  hundreth pen[is  to  haue  talde]. 

TT    r              ,;    j  .                  T  J>at  is  come,  >e  time  is  ner 

He  [was  cumberd  in  couatyse],  .  '        ,                             .. 

,,     ,          r.j  ,          ,.      .    T  Among  mi  frendes  to  make  soper." 
And  J?arfore  sa[id  he  on  )>is  wise] ; 

ffor  al  >at  >ai  h[ad  forto  spend] 

was  halely  gif  [en  in  to  his  hend],  III 
And  in  his  bagges  obout  he  bare  (fol.  166T. ) 

All  )>aire  tresore  les  and  mare.  The  following  passage  is  to  be  compared  with 
And  of  all  }>at  come  to  }>am  twelue                          Towneley  XXII,  358-374  : 
274-5  be  tende  euer  toke  he  till  him  selue  ; 

In  litel  purses  euer  he  stale  vnto  simon  gan  >ai  say,  (fol.  179y. ) 

>e  tende  of  )>aire  tresore  vitale,  "  Maister,"  )>ai  said,  ")*>u  es  wele  met, 

>at  brogt  he  euer  vnto  his  wife.  And  wele  has  >ou  J>i  trauail  sett. 

J>us  [cursedly]  he  led  his  life.  369  A  man  es  here  omanges  vs  led 

[And  if  )?e]  oynement  les  and  mare  371  bat  wen  es  and  all  for  bled ; 

[Had  bene  saed,  als  he]  said  are,  Him  self  beres  J>e  same  tre 

[for  thre  hundreth]  plates  fully,  J?at  he  on  sail  hanged  be  ; 

279  ban  suld  him  self  haue  had  threty, —  357-8  And  bis  grete  bir bin  bat  he  beres 
278  bat  of  thre  hundreth  es  be  tende —  357  To  gang  with  all  mekill  him  deres. 
277  bat  thoght  he  wele  with  him  suld  wende.  And  if  J>ou  will  now  for  oure  sake 
274  ffor  be  tend  to  him  self  he  toke  374  Of  >is  man  be,  rode  tre  take 

Of  all  [Jmire  siluer  (so]  sais  }>e  boke).  374-5  And  bere  itfurth  whore,  it  sail  be, 

And,  for  }>e  tende  cumes  to  nomare  Mekill  wald  we  thank  )>e." 12 

Of  thre  hundreth,  als  I  said  are, 

Bot  to  thretty,  als  es  said  biforn,  7  Harleian,  4196  f.  68y. : 

So  mekill  thoght  him  he  had  lorn,  ..  ,..,           .. 

.,  r,      %              -iV.-        u  Whare  wiltou  we  puruay  a  place 

>at  suld  [haue]  cumen  into  his  walde.  T    ,         UuL    t    *.    t         UOM 

„.        ,    r    ,  .         .  T  In  forto  hald  J>e  fest  of  pasch?" 

280  Jjarfor[e  his  mais]ter  so  he  salde, 

And  asked  nowj>er  more  ne  les  "  ASain  there  is  verbal  reminiscence  of  Cursor  Mundi, 
Bot  M  >e  tend  of  thre  hundreth  es;                      (Cotton  MS')>  15187-15190  : 

274  >at  es  threty,  trewly  to  tell.  "  Gas  til-ward  >e  tun,"  he  said. 

when  >is  was  done  he  wald  noght  dwel.6  "  A  man  }>ar  you  sal  mete, 
A  watrin  vescel  in  his  hand, 


J>ar-wid  scho  fel  in  suilk  a  grete,  O -gains  yow  J>at  strett ..." 

j>at  wid  J^e  teris  scho  wesse  his  fete  ;  although  the  parallel  does  not  extend  to  the  lines  which 

On  J>aim  scho  wepe  hir  sinnes  sare,  are  Ci08est  to  the  Towneley  play. 

And  si>en  scho  drei  }>aim  wid  hir  hare.  9  j^g  ssuchl. 

Be  it  noted,  however,  that  in  the  lines  that  follow,  the  10  Cot.  Tib.  E  vri,  fol.  166^.  "Best  wieand  mi  menje  all." 

Townely  play  is  nearer  the  Northern  Passion  than  it  is  the  "  Camb.  Univ.  MS.  Gg.  1.  1. 

Cursor  Mundi.  "  Ms.  Cotton  Tiberius  E  vn. 
6  Ms.  Cotton  Tiberius  E  vu. 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


171 


The  repeated  instances  of  identity  of  rime  can  be 
accounted  for  only  by  supposing  that  the  author 
of  these  plays  was  working  with  the  Northern 
Passion  either  actually  beside  him,  or  definitely 
in  mind. 

Moreover,  the  importance  of  this  text  for  the 
drama  is  not  confined  to  the  Towneley  plays. 
Though  in  the  York  cycle  the  verbal  borrowings 
are  not  so  frequent  or  so  extended,  yet  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Passion  in  determining  the  sequence  of 
events  is  unmistakable.  York  plays  which  show 
undoubted  likeness  either  in  verbal  reminiscence 
or  in  similarity  of  outline  are  xxvi,  xxvii,  xxvm, 
xxix,  xxxir,  xxxni,  xxxiv,  xxxv,  xxxvi, 
and  xxxviii.13  That  the  York  playwright  occa- 
sionally made  use  of  a  vernacular  source  has  al- 
ready been  demonstrated  by  Mr.  Craigie,"  who 
has  pointed  out  parallels  in  the  Middle  "English 
Gospel  of  Nicodemus.  With  the  additional  facts 
here  presented,  the  dependence  of  the  playwright 
upon  vernacular  texts,  suggested  by  Mr.  Craigie, 
is  confirmed  and  extended.  In  fact,  the  Northern 
Passion  -f-  the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus  would  appear  to 
supply  the  basis  for  whole  plays,  the  sources  being 
used  to  supplement  each  other.  Whatever  uses 
the  liturgical  drama  may  have  served  in  develop- 
ing the  dramatic  tradition,  it  seems  clear  that  in 
these  plays,  at  least,  the  author  depended  directly 
upon  vernacular  texts.  In  other  words,  the  Eng- 
lish playwright  appears  to  have  followed  the  line 
of  least  resistance  :  in  constructing  these  scriptural 
plays  he  turned  naturally  enough  to  English  para- 
phrases of  the  scriptural  stories  already  in  meter 
— obviously  a  much  easier  method  than  one  which 
involved  translation. 

There  are  many  questions  of  detail  which  still 
remain  to  be  considered  :  a  careful  comparison  of 
all  the  manuscripts  of  the  Passion  is  necessary  in 
order  to  determine  in  what  form  it  was  used  by 

1S  The  reader  may  test  the  influence  of  the  Passion  on 
the  York  plays  by  comparing  the  portion  already  printed 
by  Horstmann  in  Herrigs  Archiv,  l/vii,  pp.  78-83.  Cf. 
especially  11.  39-40  with  York  xxxvi,  279-81  ;  11.  75-78 
with  York  xxxvi,  292-297;  11.  195-6  with  York  xxxviii, 
140-141  ;  Towneley  xxvi,  167-168  ;  11.  407-8  with  York 
xxxvm,  359-60 ;  Towneley  xxvi,  502-503 ;  11.  439-40 
with  York  xxxviii,  404-6  ;  Towneley  xxvi,  535-7 ;  11, 
453-4  with  York  xxxviii,  408-9  :  Towneley  xxvi,  545-8. 
11.  459-60  with  York  xxxvm,  432  ;  Towneley  xxvi,  556. 

"An  English  Miscellany  (Oxford,  1901),  pp.  52-61. 


the  playwright.  Furthermore,  the  whole  matter 
of  the  relation  of  the  cycles  must  be  reconsidered 
in  the  light  of  these  new  facts.  Obviously,  such 
larger  questions  cannot  be  discussed  until  the  study 
of  all  the  manuscripts  is  finished.  I  am  now  en- 
gaged in  editing  the  complete  text  of  the  Northern 
Passion  from  nine  manuscripts  ;  my  present  pur- 
pose is,  therefore,  merely  to  call  attention  briefly 
to  the  direct  relation  in  which  it  stands  to  the 
English  mystery  plays,  postponing  until  the  pub- 
lication of  the  text,  the  critical  problems  which  it 
may  involve.15 

FRANCES  A.  FOSTER. 

Bryn  Mawr  College. 


AN  ECHO  OF  SCHILLER'S  RAUBER  IN 
ENGLAND 

Recent  investigation  has  shown  that  Schiller's 
Ranker  called  forth  very  few  imitations  in  Eng- 
land. In  spite  of  four  translations  between  1790- 
1800,  one  of  which  passed  through  four  editions, 
there  appeared  very  few  native  tragedies  which, 
either  in  plot  or  diction,  followed  directly  in  its 
track.  Thomas  Rea1  mentions  only  two  plays 
which  owe  their  origin  to  Schiller's  drama,  Hoi- 
man's  Red  Cross  Knights,  1799,  and  Gandy's 
"Lorenzo,"  1823.  The  reason  for  this  poverty 
of  imitation  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  striking  char- 
acteristics of  the  Robbers,  revolutionary  sentiment 
and  extravagant  diction  rendered  it  popular  with 
liberal  readers,  but  at  the  same  time  subjected  it 
to  the  veto  of  the  dramatic  censor.  It  could  reach 
the  English  stage  only  in  a  mutilated  form.  This 
is  what  happened  to  it  at  the  hands  of  Holman, 
who  diluted  the  sentiments  and  substituted  a  melo- 
dramatic for  a  tragic  catastrophe. 

To  these  plays  mentioned  by  Rea  may  be  added 
a  third,  Richard  Cumberland' s  Don  Pedro,  which, 
though  not  a  professed  imitation,  bears  a  resem- 
blance close  enough  to  stamp  it  as  an  offspring  of 
the  Robbers.  An  outline  of  the  plot  will  show 

15  Professor  Carleton  Brown  pointed  out  to  me  the  possi- 
bility of  a  direct  relation  between  the  Passion  and  the  mys- 
tery plays,  and  the  above  parallels  have  been  worked  out 
at  his  suggestion. 

1  Schiller's  Dramas  and  Poems  in  England,  1906. 


172 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


that  Cumberland  seized  upon  certain  external 
characteristics  of  Schiller's  play,  which  appealed 
to  him  because  of  their  dramatic  effectiveness,  and 
upon  these  as  a  framework  constructed  a  romantic 
drama  which  preserves  little  of  the  vigor  and 
strength  of  the  original. 

Don  Pedro,  called  El  Diablo,  the  son  of  a 
Spanish  nobleman,  has  been  discarded  by  his 
family  on  account  of  his  liberal  principles  and 
savage  character.  He  joins  a  band  of  robbers, 
and  by  his  superior  vices  is  raised  to  the  dignity 
of  being  their  leader.  Henrique,  his  brother,  is 
the  very  antithesis  of  Don  Pedro  and  the  embodi- 
ment of  all  that  is  good  and  amiable.  He  falls 
by  chance  into  the  hands  of  the  robbers,  is  stabbed, 
and  left  for  dead  by  his  brother,  Pedro  now  dis- 
guises himself  in  Henrique's  clothes  and  gains  ad- 
mission to  the  house  of  his  uncle,  who,  believing 
him  to  be  Henrique,  is  about  to  bestow  upon  him 
the  hand  of  his  daughter  Celestina  ;  but  Celestina 
has  a  dream  in  which  she  is  apprised  of  the  vil- 
lainy of  Pedro  and  his  supposed  murder  of  Hen- 
rique. But  the  father  will  not  be  convinced  by 
any  such  flimsy  evidence.  An  inquiry  concern- 
ing the  supposed  murder  of  Henrique  is  instigated 
by  the  inquisitor.  Nicholas,  a  messenger  to  whom 
Henrique  had  given  a  letter  recommending  that 
his  brother  should  take  flight  before  his  infamy 
should  be  revealed,  is  condemned.  The  evidence 
is  supplied  by  Pedro,  who  represents  that  he,  as 
Henrique,  had  written  the  letter  and  that  Nicho- 
las had  robbed  him.  But  the  real  Henrique  has 
followed  after  his  messenger,  and  relates  to  the 
inquisitor  the  true  state  of  affairs.  Nicholas  is 
set  free,  Henrique  is  joined  to  Celestina  and  Don 
Pedro,  crowded  to  the  wall,  commits  suicide. 

Cumberland  is  indebted  to  Schiller  not  so  much 
for  the  details  of  the  plot,  as  for  the  idea  of  the 
banditti,  the  hostility  between  the  two  brothers 
and,  above  all,  for  the  general  characteristics  of 
Don  Pedro,  bearer  of  the  title  r61e.  In  his  per- 
son the  author  combined  the  worst  characteristics 
of  both  Karl  and  Franz  Moor,  resulting  in  an 
enormity  so  unnatural  and  grotesque  that  the 
human  element  is  scarcely  recognizable.  He  is, 
like  Karl  Moor,  a  free,  unrestrained  spirit,  has 
Karl's  disregard  for  established  custom  and  social 
order  and  finally  falls  a  prey  of  his  own  pernicious 
appetites  and  desires.  There  is,  however,  in  his 


character,  no  suggestion  of  the  human  and  pa- 
thetic side  of  Karl's  nature,  his  intense  love  for 
Emilia  and  his  father,  his  ultimate  regret  for  the 
waywardness  of  his  life  and  his  fatalistic  convic- 
tion that  he  was  the  victim  of  inevitable  circum- 
stances. For  these  redeeming  qualities  are  sub- 
stituted Franz's  cunning  and  cruelty,  unscrupu- 
lousness,  and  atheism.  The  fusion  of  the  two 
brothers  Karl  and  Franz  into  one  character  made 
it  necessary  to  create  a  new  figure,  Henrique,  who 
is  the  virtuous  and  injured  lover  of  the  conven- 
tional type.  Schiller's  style  is  reflected  in  Cum- 
berland's diction  by  the  employment  of  extrava- 
gant language  calculated  to  express  violent  emo- 
tion. It  is,  however,  a  feeble  echo  of  his  model 
and  has  the  effect  of  bombast  and  inflation.  We 
are  conscious  that  behind  the  words  there  is  no 
convincing  personality,  and  behind  the  person- 
ality no  burning  experience  in  the  author' s  life. 

Don  Pedro  was  produced  for  the  first  time  at 
the  Haymarket  Theatre  July  26,  1796,  and  met 
with  little  success.  It  was  announced  for  a  second 
representation  with  a  ' '  mixture  of  applause  and 
approval. ' '  After  four  performances  it  was  taken 
off  and  never  revived.  That  Cumberland  himself 
was  not  very  well  satisfied  with  his  effort  may  be 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  he  scarcely  mentions  it 
in  his  Memoirs. 


Philadelphia. 


GEORGE  M.  BAKER. 


THE  DATE  OF  CHAUCER'S  MARRIAGE 
GROUP 

It  is  a  matter  of  considerable  interest  to  deter- 
mine at  what  period  of  Chaucer's  development  the 
"  Marriage  Group  "  of  Canterbury  Tales  (which, 
according  to  Professor  Kittredge's  definition,  con- 
sists of  Groups  D,  E,  and  F,  containing  the  Wife 
of  Bath's  Prolog  and  Tale,  the  Friar's  Tale,  Sum- 
moner's  Tale,  Clerk's  Tale,  Merchant's  Tale, 
Squire's  Tale,  and  Franklin's  Tale,  with  the  in- 
tervening links,  etc.),  was  composed.  Fortu- 
nately we  have  some  reliable  chronological  data. 
In  his  Envoy  to  Bukton  Chaucer  says  to  his  friend : 

The  Wyf  of  Bathe  I  pray  you  that  ye  rede 
Of  this  matere  that  we  have  on  honde, 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  N01ES. 


173 


the  "matere"  being  Bukton's  approaching  mar- 
riage. Now  since  this  poem  was  written  in  the 
latter  part  of  1396,  as  shown  by  Skeat  (Oxford 
Chaucer,  i,  85),  the  allusion  gives  us  a  terminus 
ad  quern  for  the  completion  of  the  Wife's  prolog, 
(see  also  Tatlock,  Development  and  Chronology,  pp. 
210,  211).  Moreover,  the  remarkable  parallels 
of  thought  and  phraseology  between  the  Wife  of 
Bath's  Prolog  and  the  Merchant's  Tale  have  very 
properly  been  taken  as  evidence  that  these  two 
works  were  written  within  a  rather  short  interval 
of  time  (Tatlock,  pp.  201,  202).  Other  chrono- 
logical data  have  been  obtained  from  our  know- 
ledge of  what  books  Chaucer  was  reading  at  the 
time  he  was  working  on  the  Marriage  Group.  It 
is  a  well  known  fact  that  the  Wife  of  Bath's  Pro- 
log is  very  deeply  indebted  to  St.  Jerome's  work 
adversus  Jovinianum  (see  Essays  on  Chaucer, 
Chaucer  Soc.,  pp.  298  ff. ).  When  we  inquire 
what  other  works  of  Chaucer  show  the  influence 
of  this  work  of  St.  Jerome's,  we  find  that  in  the 
Merchant's  Tale  (E  1294 ff.)  Theophrastus,  who 
is  embodied  in  St.  Jerome's  treatise,  is  quoted  by 
name,  that  the  Summoner  (D  1929)  alludes  to 
Jovinian,  and  that  Dorigen's  lament  in  the 
Franklin's  Tale  (F  1355-1456)  is  made  up  from 
St.  Jerome,  Book  I,  chapters  41-46.  This  common 
use  of  the  same  material  gives  us  ground  for  the 
inference  that  these  three  works  were  composed 
at  no  great  interval  after  the  Wife  of  Bath's  Pro- 
log. But  Chaucer's  use  of  St.  Jerome  furnishes 
us  with  another  clew.  In  the  A  prolog  to  the 
Legend  of  Good  Women,  11.  281  ff.,  the  God  of 
Love  cites  Jerome  against  Jovinian,  and  sums  up 
the  chapters,  mentioned  above,  which  furnish  the 
material  for  Dorigen's  lament  in  the  Franklin's 
Tale.1  Now,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  beg  the 
question  of  the  priority  of  the  two  prologs  to  the 
Legend  of  Good  Women,  there  is  very  good  ground 
for  assigning  to  the  A  prolog  a  date  not  long  after 
June  7,  1394.1  If  we  accept  this  date  for  the  A 
prolog  we  have  good  evidence,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
for  dating  the  Marriage  Group  near  1394  or  1395. 
Within  a  few  months,  however,  Mr.  Lowes  has 

1  For  this  material  in  regard  to  Chaucer's  use  of  St. 
Jerome,  see  Skeat,  index  and  notes  to  Oxford  Chaucer,  and 
Koeppel,  Anglia,  xm,  1743.,  Archiv,  LXXXIV,  414,  415. 

1  Lowes,  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association, 
xx,  780-801,  Tatlock,  p.  122. 


furnished  us  with  some  additional  evidence.  He 
has  shown3  that  the  Merchant's  Tale,  the  Wife  of 
Bath's  Prolog,  and,  probably,  the  Franklin's  Tale 
are  indebted  to  Decha  raps'  Miroir  de  Mariage, 
and  that  the  A  prolog  to  the  Legend  of  Good 
Women  shows  the  influence  of  the  same  work. 
This,  of  course,  lends  additional  force  to  the  infer- 
ence that  the  Marriage  Group  was,  roughly  speak- 
ing, contemporary  with  the  A  prolog.  Finally, 
Mr.  Lowes  points  out  that  Chaucer  had  about  this 
time  an  excellent  opportunity  for  securing  a  copy 
of  the  Miroir,  thru  the  agency  of  Sir  Lewis  Clif- 
ford, who  renewed  his  acquaintance  with  De- 
schamps  during  the  peace  negotiations  carried  on 
at  Lolinghem  early  in  1393.  In  summing  up  his 
conclusions  as  to  the  chronological  bearings  of  this 
new  evidence  Mr.  Lowes  emphasises  "the  clearer 
light  which  is  thrown,  by  Chaucer's  use  of  the 
Miroir,  upon  the  close  and  intimate  interrelations 
of  the  Marriage  Group  as  a  whole.  For  what- 
ever the  order  within  the  group,  the  common  rela- 
tion of  its  members  to  the  Miroir  de  Mariage 
affords  conclusive  evidence  of  what  has  long  been 
regarded  as  probable  on  other  grounds — the  fact, 
namely,  that  the  various  tales  which  deal  specifi- 
cally with  marriage  belong  to  the  same  general 
period.  And  that  period,  there  is  good  reason  to 
believe,  began  in  1393."* 

I  wish  now  to  call  attention  to  a  point  that  has 
never,  I  believe,  been  utilised  in  discussing  the 
chronology  of  the  Canterbury  Tales.  Chaucer's 
Envoy  to  Scogan  was  very  probably  written  in  the 
autumn  of  1393  (Oxford  Chaucer,  I,  556,  557). 
In  this  poem  Chaucer,  after  putting  into  Scogan' s 
mouth  the  words  : 

Lo !  olde  Grisel  list  to  ryme  and  pleye  ! 
replies  as  follows  : 

Nay,  Scogan,  sey  not  so,  for  I  mexcuse, 
God  help  me  so  I  in  no  rym,  doutelees, 
Ne  thinke  I  never  of  slepe  wak  my  muse, 
That  rusteth  in  my  shethe  stille  in  pees. 
Whyl  I  was  yong,  I  putte  hir  forth  in  prees, 
But  al  shal  passe  that  men  prose  or  ryme  ; 
Tak  every  man  his  turn,  as  for  his  tyme. 

One  might  be  inclined  to  deny  to  this  utterance 
of  Chaucer's,  occurring  as  it  does  in  verse  of  so 

'Modern  Philology,  viu,  165-186,  305-334. 
4 Modern  Philology,  viu,  332,  333. 


174 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


light  a  vein,  all  significance  whatever.  Yet,  when 
we  consider  the  matter  more  closely,  it  is  difficult 
to  show  any  solid  ground  for  discrediting  Chau- 
cer's statement,  that  his  muse  was  "rusting  in 
his  sheath  ' '  at  the  time  he  rallied  Scogan  on  his 
blasphemies  against  Love.     All  that  we  can  say 
against  it  is  that  it  is  obviously  expressed  with 
humorous  exaggeration,  but  it  may  nevertheless 
be  based  upon  sober  fact.     For  there  is,  a  priori, 
nothing  improbable  in  Chaucer's  statement.     In 
the  last  decade  of  his  life,  Chaucer  was  occupied 
only  with   the  Canterbury   Tales   and   occasional 
short  poems.     Now,  from  all  that  we  know  of  his 
methods  of  work  we  may  be  sure  that  Chaucer  did 
not  write  the  Canterbury  Tales  as  Trollope  is  said 
to  have  written  his  novels,  at  the  regular  rate  of 
so  many  pages  a  day.     The  work  took  shape  in 
his  mind  little  by  little,  and,  as  Miss  Hammond 
has  very  suggestively  said,5  each  set  of  pilgrims, 
with  their  corresponding  tales,  was  the  result  of 
a  separate  impulse  to    the  poet's  imagination. 
Among  these  various  motifs  that  Chaucer  made 
use  of  for  carrying  on  his  work  were,  to  follow 
Miss   Hammond    again,6   the   romantic-religious 
group  represented  by  the  Knight,  Prioress,  etc. ; 
the  ' '  quarrel  group  ' '  of  Miller  and  Reeve,  etc. ; 
and  the  Marriage  Group.     When  his  imagination 
was  kindled  by  the  dramatic  possibilities  of  some 
new  device,  Chaucer  worked  at  the  Canterbury 
Tales  with  great  energy  ;  when  he  had  exhausted 
these  possibilities  he  laid  the  work  aside  until  he 
could  come  at  another  device.    It  seems  reasonable, 
therefore,  to    take    Chaucer's    utterance  in  the 
Envoy  to  Scogan  as  marking  one  of  these  periods 
in  which  he  was  not  actively  at  work   on  the 
Canterbury  Tales,  but  lying  fallow, 

If  this  view  be  accepted,  the  allusion  has  an 
obvious  bearing  upon  the  date  of  the  Marriage 
Group.  .  It  corroborates  in  a  striking  way  Mr. 
Lowes' s  theory  that  the  composition  of  this  sec- 
tion of  the  Canterbury  Tales  began  at  the  end  of 
1393  or  very  early  in  1394.  For,  in  considera- 
tion of  the  evidence  we  already  have  that  Chaucer 
was  enthusiastically  at  work  on  the  Marriage 
Group  in  1394  or  1395,  a  period  of  inactivity  in 
the  autumn  of  1393  must  surely  indicate  that 
when  Chaucer  wrote  his  Envoy  to  Scogan  he  had 


not  yet  received  this  important  inspiration.  We 
may  therefore  with  increased  confidence  assign  to 
the  Marriage  Group  the  date  1393-1396. 


SAMUEL  MOORE. 


Harvard  University. 


ZU  EINIGEN  STELLEN   IN  GOETHES 
EGMONT 

Zweiter  Aufzug,  Egmont's  Wohnung.  "  Noch 
hab'  ich  meines  Wachstums  Gipfel  nicht  erreicht ; 
und  steh'  ich  droben  einst,  so  will  ich  fest,  nicht 
augstlich  stehn.  Soil  ich  fallen,  so  mag  ein  Don- 
nerschlag,  ein  Sturmwind,  ja  ein  selbst  verfehlter 
Schritt  mich  abwarts  in  die  Tiefe  stiirzen  ;  da  lieg 
ich"  u.  s.  w. 

Beim  ersten  Augenschein  wird  man  gewiss  die 
gesperrt  gedruckten  Worte  im  Sinne  "durch 
eignes  Verschulden  verfehlt"  auffassen,  wie  es 
ja  die  Ubersetzer  und  Commentatoren,  soweit  sie 
die  Stelle  berucksichtigen,  auch  dtirchweg  tun. 
Bei  naherem  Zusehn  zeigt  es  sich  aber,  dass  der 
Nachdruck  auf  '  Schritt '  liegen  kann,  mit  Neben- 
ton  auf  '  selbst ' ;  wodurch  '  selbst '  nicht  mehr 
'  verfehlt '  modifizierte,  sondern  den  ganzen  Satz- 
teil — ganz  als  wenn  es  hiesse,  "  ja  selbst  ein  ver- 
fehlter Schritt."  Das  ist  nun  allerdings  eine 
gewaltsame,  urn  nicht  zu  sagen  unrnogliche  Wort- 
stellung,  und  es  ware  sicherlich  aussichtslos,  nach 
Paralleleu  einer  solchen  Sprachwillkur  suchen 
zu  wollen.  Andrerseits  ist  ein  Schritt,  den  man 
selbst  (und  kein  andrer)  verfehlt,  als  bose  Tauto- 
logie  noch  anstossiger — was  bisher  iibersehen 
worden  ist. 

Man  bedeuke,  dass,  allem  Anschein  nach,  die 
ersten  drei  Akte  des  Dramas  schon  1775  vor- 
lagen,  also  zum  Urtexte  gehoren,  mit  dem  Goethe 
nach  seinem  Briefe  an  Frau  von  Stein  vom  20. 
Marz  1782  so  unzufrieden  war.  Deuuoch  will  er 
' '  nur l  das  allzuaufgeknopfte,  studentenhafte  der 
Manier  zu  tilgen  suchen,  das  der  Wu'rde  des  Ge- 
genstands  widerspricht. "  Moglicherweise  entging 
dabei  der  etwas  kraftgenialische  Satz  in  diesem 
sonst  durchaus  wiirdigen  Passus  seiner  Aufmerk- 


6  Ohaucer,  p.  256. 


6  Ibid.,  256  ff. 


1  Von  rair,  jedoch  im  Sinne  der  Stelle  hervorgehoben. 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


175 


samkeit,    auch  bei  der  endlichen   Revision  und 
Vollendung  des  Stiickes, 

Es  ist  weiterhia  zu  beriicksichtigen,  dass  die 
Stelle  durchweg  rhythmisch  ist,  Wenn  alle  Worte 
iin  Satz  beibehalten  werdeu  sollen,  und  dabei 
auch  der  Rhythmus,  so  ist  nicht  zu  ersehen,  wo 
anders  '  selbst '  stehen  konnte.  Ja,  selbst  6in 
verfehlter  Schritt'  ginge  rhythmisch  vielleicht 
an  ;  der  Schwerton  auf  '  ein  '  taugt  aber  darum 
nicht,  weil  nicht  ein  Donnerschlag  em  Sturm- 
wind,  em  Schritt  gemeint  sind.  '  Selbst '  ist  aber 
notig  im  Satze,  um  das  an  und  fur  sich  Unbedeu- 
tende  des  Fehltritts  gegeniiber  den  machtigen 
Naturausserungen  des  Donnerschlags,  des  Sturm- 
winds  zu  markieren,  die  begreiflicherweise  den 
Sturz  des  Machtigen  nach  sich  ziehen  konnen. 

Klaucke  {Egmont,  p.  54)  erlautert :  "Die  Ge- 
fahr  kann  von  aussen  kommen  :  '  Ein  Donner- 
schlag, ein  Sturmwind'  kann  ihn  niederschmet- 
tern  ;  er  kann  auch  durch  eigne  Schuld,  durch 
4  einen  selbst  verfehlten  Schritt '  zu  Grunde 
gehen  "...  Das  widerspricht  aber  total  dem  Fa- 
talismus  Egmonts,  der  doch  nirgends  deutlicher 
zum  Vorschein  tritt,  als  gerade  hier.  Nein,  er 
denkt  gar  nicht  daran,  je  durch  eignes  Fehlen 
einen  Irrtum  zu  begehen,  der  nicht  aufs  engste 
mit  seinem  Schicksal  zusammenhinge,  und  daher 
gewissermassen  auch  vorausbedingt  ist.  Ausser- 
dem  liegt  kein  zwingender  Grund  vor,  bios  die 
ersten  zwei  Umstande  des  Donnerschlags  und  des 
Sturm  winds  als  rein  ausserlich,  den  Fehltritt  aber 
als  durch  eigne  Schuld  bedingt  anzunehmen. 
Alle  drei  sind  ihm  durch' s  Schicksal  ("soil  ich 
fallen  "  u.  s.  w. )  im  Voraus  bestimmt. 

Ubrigens,  wie  unsaglich  prosaisch  :  Ein  '  selbst- 
verfehlter'  Schritt  sollte  den  damonischen  Egmont 
sturzen !  Es  ware  der  Schritt  vom  Erhabenen  zum 
Lacherlichen. 

Dieselbe  Scene,  Oranien. 

Egmont.    Ist  des  Konigs  Gunst  ein  so  schmaler 

Grund  ? 

Oranien.    So  schmal  nicht,  aber  schliipfrig. 
Egmont.    Bei  Gott  !  man  thut  ihm  Unrecht.    Ich 

mag  nicht  leiden,  dass  man   ungleich  von 

ihm  deukt !    Er  ist  Karls  Sohn  und  keiner 

Niedrigkeit  fahig. 

Oranien.    Die  Konige  thun  nichts  Niedriges. 
Egmont.    Man  sollte  ihn  kennen  lernen. 


Buchheim  bemerkt  zu  der  hervorgehobenen 
Stelle  ' '  the  import  of  this  saying  is,  that  the 
actions  of  kings  are  never  interpreted  as  mean, 
because  people  always  attribute  to  them  higher 
motives."  Winkler,  "he  means  that  kings  never 
do  anything  wrong  or  contemptible,  because  they 
do  everything  through  their  agents. ' ' 

Wir  sind  aber  durch  den  Zusammenhang  weder 
zu  der  einen  noch  der  anderen  von  diesen  Aufias- 
sungen  befugt.  Oraniens  Worte  sind  natiirlich 
ironisch  gemeint.  Egmont  sagt  mit  aller  er- 
wunschten  Klarheit  "man  thut  ihm  Unrecht"  u. 
s.  w.  Und,  dass  er  Oraniens  Antwort  als  direkt 
auf  den  Konig  (und  nicht  auf  andere)  gemu'nzt 
auffasst,  beweist  seine  nachste  Replik  :  "  Man 
sollte  ihn  kennen  lernen."  D.  h.  seine  Motive 
nicht  anzweifeln. 

Drifter  Aufzug,  Klarchens  Wohnung. 

Klarchen.    Bist  du  gut  mit  ihr  ?  (der  Regeutin). 

Egmont.  Es  sieht  einmal  so  aus.  "VVir  sind  ein- 
ander  freundlich  und  dieustlich. 

Klarchen.    Und  im  Herzen  ? 

Egmont.  Will  ich  ihr  wohl.  Jedes  hat  seine 
eignen  Absichten.  Das  thut  nichts  zur  Sache. 
Sie  ist  eine  treffliche  Frau,  kennt  ihre  Leute 
und  sahe  tief  geuug,  wenn  sie  auch  nicht 
argwohnisch  ware.  Ich  mache  ihr  viel  zu 
schaffen,  weil  sie  hinter  meinem  Betragen 
immer  Geheimnisse  sucht  und  ich  keine  habe. 

Klarchen.    So  gar  keine  ? 

Egmont.  Eh  nun  !  einen  kleinen  Hinterhalt. 
Jeder  Wein  setzt  Weinstein  in  den  Fassern 
an  mit  der  Zeit. 

Der  letzte  Safz  ist  durchaus  nicht  klar  im  Zu- 
sammenhang. Wie  soil  der  sich  in  den  Fassern 
ansetzende  Weinstein  das  Verhaltnis  Egmonts 
zur  Regentin  beleuchten  ?  Etwa  : — Jeder  noch  so 
klare  Wein — die  sonst  vollig  uneigennutzige  Hal- 
tung  beider — scheidet  einen  tru'ben  Bodensatz 
aus,  namlich  die  Nebenabsichten  eines  jeden,  der 
sich  mit  der  Zeit  erhartet ;  d.  h.  man  erkennt  an 
und  respektiert  allmahlich  gegenseitig  die  zur 
Regel  und  Natur  gewordenen  iudividuellen  For- 
derungen,  den  '  kleinen  Hinterhalt '  eines  jeden 
—  ? 

Die  Frage  sei  jedoch  hiermit  weitergegeben. 


176 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


Vierter  Aufzug,  Strasse. 

Zimmermeister.  Und  wie  haben  dir  seine  (Albas) 
Soldaten  gefallen  ?  u.  s.  w. 

Jetter.  Pfui  !  Es  scliniirt  einem  das  Herz  ein, 
wenn  man  so  einen  Haufen  die  Strasse  hinab 
marschieren  sieht.  Kerzengerad,  mit  unver- 
wandtem  Blick,  ein  Tritt  so  viel  ihrer  sind. 
u.  s.  w. 

Das  ist  nun  natiirlich  ein  amusanter  Ana- 
chronismus,  da,  wie  bekannt,  der  militarische 
Gleichschritt  erst  seit  der  Mitte  des  18  ten  Jahr- 
hunderts  (hauptsachlich  in  Preussen)  (wieder) 
eingefiihrt  wurde. — Ubrigens,  man  glaubt  aus  der 
Stelle  den  Widerwillen  des  Frankfurters  Goethe 
gegen  die  preussischen  Grenadiere,  die  er  bei 
seinem  Besuch  in  Berlin  genugsam  Gelegenlieit 
hatte  kennen  zu  lernen,  herauszuhoren.  Im  Ge- 
folge  Karl  Augusts  wohnte  er  den  Manovern  zu 
Potsdam  und  Aken  bei  und  spricht  in  Briefen  an 
Frau  von  Stein  (Mai  1778)  seine  Verwunderung 
aus  iiber  das  ihm  fremde  kriegerische  Treiben  in 
der  preussischen  Residenz.  — Da  Goethe  ab  und  zu 
in  den  folgenden  zwei  Jahreu  an  seinem  Stiick 
arbeitete,  so  mag  die  Stelle  von  dieser  Gelegen- 
heit  herruhren. 

LEE  M.  HOLLANDER. 

University  of  Wisconsin. 


DR.  JOHNSON  AND  H.  P.  STURZ 

So  far  as  the  writer  has  been  able  to  ascertain 
there  is  no  English  work  upon  Dr.  Johnson's  life, 
friends  and  acquaintances  which  mentions  the 
interesting  letter  written  by  Helf  reich  Peter  Sturz 
in  the  year  1768  and  published  in  the  German 
periodical  Das  Deutsche  Museum,  May,  1777,  in 
which  Sturz  describes  his  visit  to  Johnson  at  the 
home  of  the  Thrales.  The  letter  has  been  re- 
printed several  times  in  German  anthologies,1  but 
English  writers  have  apparently  overlooked  it. 

Sturz  was  a  keen  observer  and  ' '  geistreicher  ' ' 
critic  of  English  literature  during  the  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  accompanied  the 

1  Sibliothek  d.  d.  Klassiker,  bd.  vi ;  Kurz,  Handbuch  d. 
dt.  Prosa,  bd.  1, 


king  of  Denmark  on  his  visit  to  England  in  1768, 
and  owing  to  his  interest  in  literature,  his  ability 
to  speak  the  English  language,  and  his  genial 
personality,  he  became  the  friend  of  such  men 
as  Garrick,  Colman,  Macpherson,  and  Arthur 
Murphy.2 

The  most  interesting  fact  about  the  above-men- 
tioned letter  (dated  London,  August  18,  1768)  is 
the  evidence  it  contains  corroborating  several  of 
the  anecdotes  related  by  Mrs.  Piozzi.  It  was 
undoubtedly  Sturz  to  whom  Mrs,  Piozzi  referred 
in  saying  :  ' '  and  I  remember  when  the  king  of 
Denmark  was  in  England,  one  of  his  noblemen 
was  brought  by  Mr.  Colman  to  see  Dr.  Johnson 
at  our  country  house."  Sturz  wrote  :  "  Er  (Dr. 
Johnson)  hatte  Colman  und  mich  schriftlich  ein- 
geladen  und  es  wieder  vergessen.  Wir  uberfielen 
ihn  im  eigentlichsten  Verstand  auf  dem  Landgute 
des  Herrn  Thrailes,  dessen  Frau,  eine  artige  Wal- 
liseriu,  Griechisch  zum  Zeitvertriebe  list  und  u'ber- 
setzt. "  It  is  easy  to  understand  why  the  anec- 
dote which  Mrs.  Piozzi  goes  on  to  relate  is  not 
narrated  by  the  man  who  was  the  butt  of  the  joke 
contained  in  Mrs.  Piozzi' s  story.  Following  close 
upon  this  anecdote  Mrs.  Piozzi  remarks :  ' '  This  . . 
was  like  the  story  which  Mr.  Murphy  tells,  and 
Johnson  always  acknowledged  :  How  Mr.  Rose 
of  Hammersmith,  contending  for  the  preference 
of  Scotch  writers  over  the  English,  after  having 
set  up  the  authors  like  nine-pins,  while  the  Doctor 
kept  bowling  them  down  again  ;  at  last,  to  make 
sure  of  victory,  he  named  Ferguson  upon  Civil 
Society,  and  praised  the  book  for  being  written 
in  a  new  manner.  "I  do  not  (says  Johnson; 
perceive  the  value  of  this  new  manner,  it  is  only 
like  Buckinger,3  who  had  no  hands,  and  so  wrote 
with  his  feet. ' '  Sturz  writes  as  follows  :  ' '  Sin- 
gularity, rief  einer,  ist  oft  ein  Zeichen  des  Genies. 
Dann,  antwortete  Johnson,  gibt  es  nicht  viel 
grossre  Genieen  als  Wilton  in  Chelsea.  Seine 
Art  zu  schreiben  ist  die  singularste  von  der  Welt, 
denn  er  schreibt  seit  dem  letzten  Kriege  mit  den 
Fu'ssen." 

2  See  Hofstaetter's  Das  Deutsche  Museum,  Leipzig,  1908. 
I  have  not  been  able  to  consult  Sturz's  published  works. 

3 1  cannot  account  for  Sturz's  changing  the  name  to 
"Wilton."  Buckinger  was  a  celebrated  character  in  his 
way.  See  the  note  on  Buckinger  in  Hill's  edition  of  the 
"Anecdotes." 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


177 


The  next  paragraph  in  Sturz's  letter  bcgius  as 
follows  :  "  Colmau  raannte  den  Rehearsal  als  ein 
ehmals  bewundertes  Meisterstiick,  das  man  nicht 
mehr  zu  lesen  im  Stande  sey  :  There  was  to  little 
salt  in  too  keep  it  sweet,  sagte  Johnson."  In  Mrs. 
Piozzi's  Anecdotes  this  story  is  found  upon  the 
page  immediately  following  that  describing  the 
nobleman's  visit  to  Johnson,  and  is  thus  related  : 
"and  when  some  one  mentioned  the  ridicule 
thrown  on  him  (Dryden)  in  the  'Rehearsal,'  as 
having  hurt  his  general  character  as  an  author  : 
'On  the  contrary  (says  Mr.  Johnson)  the  great- 
ness of  Dryden' s  reputation  is  now  the  only  prin- 
ciple of  vitality  which  keeps  the  duke  of  Bucking- 
ham's play  from  putrefaction."  These  remarks 
of  Johnson  are  not  found  in  Murphy's  essay,  but 
Boswell  gives  them  in  this  form  :  ' '  Talking  of 
the  comedy  '  The  Rehearsal,'  he  said,  '  It  has  not 
v/it  enough  to  keep  it  sweet.'  This  was  easy  ;  he 
therefore  caught  himself,  and  pronounced  a  more 
round  sentence  :  '  It  has  not  vitality  enough  to 
preserve  it  from  putrefaction."  Sturz  certainly 
never  saw  Bos  well's  account,  and  I  doubt  very 
strongly  whether  Boswell  ever  read  Sturz's  letter 
in  the  Deutsches  Museum.*  Sturz's  statement  that 
it  was  Colman  who  mentioned  the  Rehearsal  gives 
an  added  interest  to  the  story. 

In  the  paragraph  just  preceding  that  containing 
this  episode,  Boswell  quotes  Johnson's  reply  to  a 
friend  (apropos  another  matter),  "Sir,  had  you 
been  dipped  in  Pactolus,  I  should  not  have  no- 
ticed you."  Curiously  enough  Sturz,  in  speaking 
of  Johnson's  pension  and  its  value  to  him,  says 
' '  Izt  hat  Johnson  den  Paktolus  in  seiuen  Garten 
geleitet."  Another  interesting  coincidence  in 
phraseology  is  found  in  Sturz's  words  immedi- 
ately preceding  the  remark  by  him  which  I  have 
just  quoted.  "In  dieser  Zeit  schrieb  er  (John- 
son) demosthenische  Reden  fur  und  wider  die 
wichtigsten  Frageu  im  Parlamentunter'm  Namen 
wirklichen  Glieder,  die  man  eine  Zeitlang  in  den 
Provinzen  fur  acht  hielt,  und  es  ist  nicht  allge- 
mein  bekannt,  dass  unter  diesen  die  beriihmte 
Rede  Pitt's  ist, — uud  die  nie  aus  Pitt's  Munde 
kam."  Murphy  writes  as  follows  :  "  An  impor- 
tant debate  being  mentioned,  Dr.  Francis  ob- 

*  Boswell  could  not  have  been  with  Sturz  at  this  meet- 
ing because  he  visited  the  Thrales  at  Streatham  for  the 
first  time  on  October  6,  1769. 


served  that  '  Mr.  Pitt's  speech  on  that  occasion, 
was  the  best  he  had  ever  read. '  He  added,  '  that 
he  had  employed  eight  years  of  his  life  in  the 
study  of  Demosthenes,  and  finished  a  translation 
of  that  celebrated  author — bnthe  had  met  with 
nothing  equal  to  the  speech  above  mentioned." 
As  soon  as  the  warmth  of  praise  subsided  he  (Dr. 
Johnson)  opened  with  the  words  :  "  That  speech 
I  wrote  in  a  garret  in  Exeter  street. ' '  — To  this 
discovery  Dr.  Francis  made  answer  :  "  Then,  Sir, 
you  have  exceeded  Demosthenes  himself ;  for  to 
say  that  you  have  exceeded  Francis's  Demos- 
thenes would  be  saying  nothing."  As  Sturz  was 
a  friend  of  Murphy  (Sturz  stating  in  another  let- 
ter that  Murphy  accompanied  him  on  his  visit  to 
Garrick),  it  is  probable  that  the  above  account  of 
Johnson's  parliamentary  experiences  Sturz  got 
from  Murphy,  although  Murphy's  essay  on  John- 
son did  not  appear  until  over  twenty  years  after 
Sturz  wrote  his  letter  to  the  Deutsches  Museum. 
As  the  earliest  life  of  Dr.  Johnson  did  not  appear 
until  1784,  and  as  Mrs.  Piozzi's  Anecdotes  came 
out  in  1786  and  Boswell' s  Life  in  1791,  it  looks 
as  though  the  earliest  published  anecdotes  of 
Johnson  appeared  in  Sturz's  Briefe  cines  Reisen- 
den  vom  Jahre  1768. 


ALFRED  E.  RICHARDS. 


Princeton  Univtrsity. 


The  French  Renaissance  in  England :  An  Account 
of  the  Literary  Relations  of  England  and  France 
in  the  Sixteenth  Century.  By  SIDNEY  LEE. 
New  York  :  Charles  Scribner's  Sous,  1910,  pp. 
xxiv  -f  494.  . 

In  his  recent  study  of  the  French  Renaissance 
in  England,  Mr.  Sidney  Lee  enters  once  more  the 
field  of  foreign  influences  upon  Elizabethan  liter- 
ature, a  field  rather  industriously  gleaned  of  late 
in  all  directions.  In  addition  to  an  extended  list 
of  monographs  dealing  with  particular  authors  or 
literary  types, — such  as  Mr.  Lee's  own  earlier 
writings  on  the  sonnet,  — cumulative  studies  have 
already  been  made  for  each  of  the  contributing 
foreign  literatures.  Best  known  of  these  are  C. 
H.  Herford's  Literary  Relations  of  England  and 
Germany  in  the  Sixteenth  Century,  and  the  ac- 


178 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


counts  of  Italian,  Spanish,  and  French  influences 
issued  a  few  years  apart  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Department  of  Comparative  Literature  of  Colum- 
bia University.  For  the  further  development  of 
such  a  field,  three  possibilities  suggest  themselves  : 
the  compilation  of  additional  evidence,  involving 
the  establishment  of  new  lines  of  indebtedness  and 
an  extension  of  the  chronological  area  ;  a  fuller 
interpretation  of  the  detailed  evidence  already 
presented  ;  or  a  careful,  unprejudiced  considera- 
tion of  the  combined  effects  of  these  foreign  influ- 
ences, in  their  relation  to  each  other  and  to  native 
English  originality.  The  second,  and  particularly 
the  third  of  these,  requiring  delicate  appreciation, 
mature  judgment,  and  wide  scholarly  experience, 
might  have  been  expected  to  prove  most  attractive 
to  Mr.  Lee  in  his  consideration  of  the  general  sub- 
ject of  Elizabethan  foreign  relations. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  plan  of  this 
work  was  definitely  shaped  before  any  attempt  at 
a  comprehensive  study  of  the  French  influence  of 
the  period  was  before  the  public,  Mr.  Lee  having 
in  mind  primarily  a  course  of  lectures  which  he 
later  delivered  before  the  University  of  Oxford 
in  the  summer  of  1909.  These  lectures,  "largely 
rewritten  and  expanded,"  became  the  volume 
under  consideration.  Hence  we  are  not  surprised 
to  find  a  book  built  essentially  on  the  first  method 
indicated  above,  with  a  minimum  of  the  critical 
interpretation  to  be  expected  of  a  scholar  whose 
reputation  is  already  established.  To  the  third 
method  he  has  apparently  given  small  consideration, 
regarding  himself  frankly  as  a  propagandist  for  the 
cause  of  French  influence.  His  purpose,  he  an- 
nounces, is  to  "  convince  discerning  students  of 
English  literature  of  the  sixteenth  century  that 
knowledge  of  the  coeval  literature  of  France  is 
required  to  verify  their  estimates  of  the  value  and 
originality  of  wellnigh  all  the  literary  endeavour 
of  Tudor  England. ' '  This  proposition,  which  Mr. 
Lee  would  have  found  few  discerning  students  to 
contest,  develops  some  pages  later  (p.  12)  into 
his  real  thesis  :  "I  am  prepared  to  defend  the 
position  that  French  culture  has  a  bearing  on  the 
development  of  Tudor  culture,  which  neither  the 
classics  nor  Italian  art  and  literature  nor  German 
art  and  literature  can  on  a  broad  survey  be  said  to 
equal."  In  connection  with  this,  emphasis  must 
be  placed  upon  the  idea  of  "  France  the  purveyor 


of  Renaissance  culture,"  which  he  insists  upon 
effectively  throughout  the  entire  treatment. 

Mr.  Lee's  classification  of  his  material  is  ad- 
mirable, if  somewhat  elaborate,  the  general  plan 
being  indicated  in  the  titles  of  his  six  books  :  The 
Debt  of  Tudor  Culture  to  France  ;  French  Influ- 
ence on  English  Literature,  1500-1550  ;  French 
Influence  on  Elizabethan  Prose  ;  On  the  Eliza- 
bethan Lyric  ;  The  Message  of  the  Huguenots  ; 
French  Influence  on  Elizabethan  Drama.  The 
first  of  these  is  the  conventional  assembling  of 
miscellaneous  facts  of  relationship  —  political, 
social,  and  the  like.  The  second,  concerned  with 
the  beginnings  of  Renaissance  activity  in  England 
and  involving  material  not  elsewhere  brought 
together  in  this  fashion,  is  a  distinct  contribution. 
The  third  offers  the  author's  strongest  presentation 
of  the  idea  of  "  transmission  of  culture"  already 
noted. 

It  is  in  the  fourth  book  that  Mr.  Lee  is  most  at 
home.  Much  of  the  material  here  is  familiar  to 
those  who  have  followed  his  articles  on  Eliza- 
bethan sonneteering,  but  he  has  drawn  heavily 
on  the  recent  work  of  L.  E.  Kastner  in  The 
Modern  Language  Review — such  of  it  at  least 
as  tends  toward  his  own  conclusions — and  has 
developed  at  some  length  the  very  uncertain 
argument  of  lyric  themes.  Book  V,  though  con- 
cerned with  relationships  rarely  noticed,  takes  on 
a  genuine  significance  in  Mr.  Lee's  treatment, 
and  might  profitably  have  been  extended  farther. 
The  sixth  book  is  clear  and  interesting,  but  the 
careful  reader  is  at  a  loss  to  justify  its  ninety-five 
pages. 

Throughout  the  whole  volume,  indeed,  there 
are  indications  of  a  lack  of  scale,  a  tendency  to 
elaborate  matters  not  really  pertinent  to  Mr. 
Lee's  specific  subject.  Hardly  a  French  author 
is  mentioned  without  a  biographical  sketch,  even 
if  there  follows  a  confession  that  the  account  has 
little  significance.  Agrippa  d'Aubigne,  for  in- 
stance, receives  four  pages  of  consideration  (328- 
332),  culminating  thus:  "The  eagerness  with 
which  Elizabethan  writers  studied  Huguenot  lit- 
erature and  poetry  of  inferior  temper  suggests  how 
great  would  have  been  their  debt  to  Aubigne"  had 
he  proved  less  shy  of  publicity. ' '  Details  of  French 
literary  history  are  often  presented  that  are  re- 
lated to  Elizabethan  England  only  by  slight  coin- 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


179 


cidence  or  not  at  all.1  This  method  reaches  an 
extreme  in  Book  VI,  where  the  argument  is  largely 
that  of  unrelated  parallel.  The  reader  is  con- 
stantly tempted  to  readjust  Mr.  Lee's  title,  mak- 
ing it  read,  The  Renaissance  in  France  and  Eng- 
land, a  form  in  which  it  would  more  accurately 
represent  his  method  of  treatment. 

The  entire  work  is  prefaced  by  an  extensive 
and  convenient  Chronological  Table  in  parallel 
columns,  and  has  as  appendices  a  series  of  lyric 
parallels  from  the  collections  of  Mr.  Lee  and  Mr. 
Kastner,  and  a  revision  (from  Modern  Philology, 
Oct.,  1905)  of  the  author's  paper  on  Chapman's 
Amorous  Zodiacke.  The  Index  is  unusually  com- 
plete. There  is  no  collected  Bibliography  in  the 
book,  and  the  bibliographical  citations  in  preface 
and  foot-notes  seem  rather  inadequate  and  unsys- 
tematic. Mr.  Lee  must  have  known  and  had 
before  him  a  large  number  of  the  particular  mono- 
graphs scattered  throughout  his  field.  At  any  rate 
we  should  expect  him  to  indicate  at  various  points 
the  investigators  really  responsible  for  the  details 
of  indebtedness  involved,  even  if  these  matters 
are  now  commonplaces.  Yet  he  makes  no  men- 
tion of  such  works  as  Friedmann's  Anne  Boleyn, 
Seebohm's  The  Oxford  Reformers,  Weller's  J. 
Sylvester's  Englische  Uebersetzung  der  religiosen 
Epen  des  DuBartas,  or  the  various  articles  in  the 
Revue  des  Etudes  Rabelaisiennes,*  and  offers  with- 
out comment  Dunster's  Considerations  on  Milton's 
Early  Reading  as  accredited  authority  on  the  re- 
lations of  DuBartas  and  Milton.  Most  of  the 
books  he  cites  are  editions  of  the  authors  dis- 
cussed, or  general  studies  of  the  hand-book 
variety. 

There  are  numerous  indications  that  Mr.  Lee's 
enthusiasm  as  a  propagandist  keeps  getting  the 
better  of  his  critical  judgment.  If  his  purpose  is 
as  polemical  as  he  conceives  it,  the  logical  struc- 

1  Cf.  the  account  of  Villon  and  Comines,  pp.  14-15,  of 
Marot,  pp.  111-114,  and  of  Ronsard,  pp.  189-195;  also 
the  discussion  of  French  printing  in  the  Renaissance 
period,  pp.  80-83,  with  its  conclusion  :  ' '  Very  different 
and  far  less  glorious  is  the  early  story  of  printing  in  Eng- 
land." The  two  historical  chapters  (i  and  ii)  in  Book 
V  employ  this  method  on  the  larger  scale  of  the  last  book. 

s  General  recognition  is  due  to  the  pioneer  work,  how- 
ever fragmentary,  of  E.  J.  B.  Ruthery,  in  his  articles, 
"  Des  Relations  sociales  et  intellectuelles  entre  la  France 
et  1' Angleterre,"  in  Rsvue  contcmporaine,  1855. 


ture  of  his  argument  may  well  be  expected  to 
manifest  itself ;  or  at  least  to  be  discernible  and 
satisfying  wherever  one  investigates  more  deeply. 
On  the  contrary,  the  reader  is  confronted  at  many 
a  turn  with  reliance  upon  "tone,"  "vein,"  or 
"adumbration"  to  establish  an  indebtedness, 
while  some  of  the  generalizations  seem  consid- 
erably beyond  the  evidence  offered  in  support  of 
them.  At  times  this  criticism  may  be  applied  to 
matters  of  large  scale,  such  as  the  effort  to  estab- 
lish a  wider  indebtedness  to  the  French  Pleiade 
by  tracing  back  to  its  members  certain  lyric 
themes,  or  the  importance  assigned  to  the  fact 
that  French  playwrights  preceded  Shakespeare 
in  drawing  plots  from  vernacular  versions  of  Plu- 
tarch. It  will  perhaps  better  serve  our  purpose 
to  cite  a  few  from  the  numerous  minor  instances 
of  this  apparent  over-straining  of  conclusions,  this 
tendency  to  read  into  the  evidence  presented  what 
only  the  ardent  advocate  of  a  cause  might  be 
expected  to  find. 

In  the  first  book  considerable  attention  is  given 
to  Anne  Boleyn,  who,  visiting  France  with  the 
English  queen  of  Louis  XII,  "prolonged  her 
stay  in  the  French  palace  for  seven  years,  and 
subsequently,  as  Henry  VIII' s  second  wife, 
infected  the  court  with  markedly  French  predi- 
lections. ' '  Indeed,  says  Mr.  Lee,  Anne  ' '  ranks 
high  among  English  apostles  of  French  culture" 
(p.  32).  It  is  only  after  prolonged  discussion 
that  scholars  have  agreed  to  accept  the  idea  of 
Anne's  seven-year  sojourn  in  France,  and  many 
are  still  of  the  opinion  that  she  was  only  fourteen 
years  of  age  at  her  return.3  Her  French  predi- 
lections are  manifest  chiefly  in  her  kindly  interest 
in  Nicholas  Bourbon,  then  only  a  young  tutor  in 
noble  English-  families  ;  and  at  best  Henry's 
second  queen  does  not  seem  a  particularly  worthy 
apostle  of  culture.  A  few  pages  farther  (p.  39) 
Mr.  Lee  notes  that  "like  her  mother  Anne  Bo- 
leyn, Queen  Elizabeth  was  devoted  to  French 
literature."  In  this  instance,  evidence  consists 
of  Elizabeth's  girlhood  translation  of  the  Miroir 
de  I'dme  pecheresse,  and  the  compliments  of 
Ronsard. 

More's  Utopia,  with  due  acknowledgment  of  its 
influence  abroad,  is  put  under  obligation  to  France 

*Cf.  Friedmann,  Anne  Bolcyn,  vol.  n,  appendix, 
note  A. 


180 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


in  several  ways.  ' '  Erasmus  .  .  .  caught  from  his 
Parisian  experience  a  Gallic  blitheness,  some  touch 
of  which  he  communicated  to  Sir  Thomas  More  " 
(p.  71).  On  the  next  page  :  "  It  was  while  More 
was  engaged  on  diplomatic  business  at  Antwerp, 
where  French  was  the  language  of  official  circles, 
it  was  while  he  was  talking  in  French  with  a 
Portuguese  sailor  .  .  .  that  More's  alert  imagina- 
tion conceived  his  new  ideal  of  society."  But 
the  Dutch  scholar  Erasmus— whom,  by  the  way, 
Mr.  Einstein  claims  as  a  representative  of  Italian 
culture  in  England  * — made  his  first  appearance 
in  England  in  1498,  after  about  two  years  in  Paris 
as  a  poverty-stricken  scholar  and  tutor.  Between 
then  and  1516,  the  date  of  the  Utopia,  his  sojourns 
in  France  were  irregular  and  of  short  duration, 
fully  as  much  of  his  time  being  spent  with 
the  English  humanists.  Mr.  Lee  finds  it  strikingly 
easy  in  several  other  places  to  identify  I' esprit 
gaulois.  The  introduction  of  More's  French  con- 
versation with  the  sailor  suggests  the  extended 
significance  given  elsewhere  (pp.  110-121)  to 
the  influence  of  the  Italian  poet  Alamanni  on 
Wyatt  and  Surrey,  because  the  former  knew  him 
in  Paris  ;  and  the  references  to  the  English  use  of 
volumes  printed  from  French- made  type  (pp. 
87,  143). 

The  account  of  French  impulse  in  vernacular 
renderings  of  the  scriptures  is  unsatisfying.  Much 
is  claimed  for  this  in  a  general  way ;  then  the 
facts  are  marshalled  (pp.  141-145),  Tyndale 
was  at  work  in  England  contemporaneously  with 
Lef&vre  d'Etaples  in  France,  and  Coverdale  in 
England  with  Olivetan  in  France.  Tyndale' s 
New  Testament  was  first  printed  at  Cologne  in 
1525.  Later  his  version  of  Jonah  and  the  second 
edition  of  the  Neiv  Testament  were  printed  in  Ant- 
werp at  the  same  press  that  had  put  out  Lefevre's 
finished  rendering.  On  such  basis  Mr.  Lee  con- 
cludes :  "The  Antwerp  printer,  Martin  1'Empe- 
reur,  forms  a  personal  bond  between  the  first  com- 
plete French  Bible  of  the  French  Renaissance  and 
the  first  English  Bible  which  Tyndale  began  and 
failed  to  finish  ...  It  is  abundantly  clear  that 
the  early  English  translators  of  the  Bible  were 
cognizant  of  the  contemporary  French  efforts,  and 
owed  them  an  appreciable  stimulus." 

*  Italian  Renaissance  in  England,  p.  57. 


Occasionally  the  inadequacy  of  evidence  seems 
to  strike  the  writer  himself  as  he  presents  it,  with  the 
result  that  his  final  statement  is  perceptibly  weak- 
ened. Witness  these  sentences  from  his  conten- 
tion for  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity  as  a  conspicuous 
example  of  the  influence  of  Calvin  and  his  group 
(pp.  150-151).  "Richard  Hooker  .  .  .  proved  in 
his  Ecclesiastical  Polity  that  he  closely  studied  the 
works  of  Calvin  and  of  Calvin's  friend  Beza  .  .  . 
To  Calvin  himself  Hooker  owed  more  than  lies  on 
the  surface  ...  At  any  rate,  in  regard  alike  to 
matter  and  method,  Calvin' s  Institution  Chretienne 
is  the  French  book  which  best  deserves  a  place 
beside  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity." 

At  other  times  the  zeal  of  the  propagandist 
moves  Mr.  Lee  not  only  to  see  the  French  rela- 
tionships in  large  and  impressive  outlines,  but  at  the 
same  time  to  exclude  from  his  vision  various  other 
possibilities  of  influence.  Critics  have  already 
pointed  out  this  feature  in  his  earlier  studies  of 
the  sonnet,  and  have  at  times  been  able  to  sup- 
plant his  parallels  from  other  sources.5  In  the 
case  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnets,  constantly  ring- 
ing the  changes  on  conventionalized  themes,  and 
written  when  widely-circulated  anthologies  had 
extended  the  acquaintance  of  English  poets  to 
include  even  the  most  obscure  of  Italian  sonne- 
teers,6 it  seems  reasonable  to  ask  that  an  assump- 
tion of  indebtedness  to  France  shall  either  be  sup- 
ported by  close,  detailed  parallel  or  involve  the  care- 
ful consideration  of  all  Italian  material  available. 
Mr.  Lee  accepts  this  point  of  view  in  theory  ; 
yet,  despite  all  his  insistence  on  the  identity  of 
lyric  themes  and  motives  merely,  he  practically 
ignores  all  Italian  lyrists  after  Petrarch,  on  the 
assumption  that  a  detail  not  definitely  Petrarchan 
must  next  be  sought  in  the  work  of  the  Pleiade. 
In  the  volume  under  consideration  there  is  not  the 
slightest  mention  of  the  work  of  Cariteo,  Tebal- 
deo,  or  Serafino  dell'  Aquila  ;  Bembo  is  ignored 
as  a  writer  of  sonnets,  and  the  lyrics  of  Sannazaro 

5L.  E,  Kastner,  "The  Elizabethan  Sonneteers  and  the 
French  Poets,"  Modern  Lang.  Review,  in,  272,  shows  the 
uncertainty  of  all  but  the  closest  parallels,  by  substituting 
DuBellay  for  Desportes  as  a  source  of  certain  sonnets  in 
Daniel's  Delia. 

6  Mr.  Lee  himself,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Elizabethan 
Sonnets,  vol.  I,  p.  xxxviii,  presents  interesting  evidence 
of  this  fact  from  the  English  poets  themselves. 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


181 


and  Ariosto  are  casually  referred  to  twice.  In 
the  same  way  Mr.  Kastner's  articles  in  the  Modern 
Language  Review  are  frequently  cited  in  so  far  as 
they  indicate  French  sources  ;  but  the  most  con- 
vincing paper  of  the  series,  establishing  the  fact 
that  Lodge's  indebtedness  for  the  Phillis  sonnets 
was  about  equally  divided  between  Italy  and 
France/  is  drawn  upon  for  only  a  foot-note 
(p.  261). 

This  general  criticism  may  be  illustrated  by  one 
of  the  larger  contentions  of  Mr.  Lee's  discussion 
of  the  lyric — the  tracing  of  the  "  Anacreontic 
vein  "  from  the  Pleiade  to  the  Elizabethans.  By 
this  he  means  ' '  the  doctrine  that  the  present  is 
all  that  counts,  the  worship  of  love  and  youth, 
the  faith  in  women  and  wine,"  expressed  in  the 
pseudo- Anacreontic  poetry  discovered  in  manu- 
script by  Henri  Etieune  in  1552,  and  published 
in  French  translation  in  1556  by  Remy  Belleau. 
The  Greek  Anthology  had  been  known  for  some 
years  ;  but  it  lacked  the  lightness  and  joy  of  this 
appropriation  of  the  Pleiade.  Neither  did  Pe- 
trarch display  such  naive  joyousness.  The  mood 
therefore  is  to  be  recognized  as  distinctively 
French.  No  consideration  is  given  to  the  almost 
identical  temper  of  certain  Latin  lyrists — Catullus 
in  particular — who  furnished  the  chief  inspiration 
of  Cariteo  and  his  group  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,8  and  through  them  pene- 
trated all  of  Renaissance  Europe. 

Apart  from  questions  of  method,  a  number  of 
inaccuracies  of  statement  have  crept  into  the 
book,  being  justified  in  part  by  the  assumption 
of  a  rather  popular  audience  ;  an  assumption 
which  is  indicated,  by  the  way,  in  the  author's 

T  "  Thomas  Lodge  as  an  Imitator  of  the  Italian  Poets," 
Mod.  Lang.  Review,  ir,  155  ff.  Mr.  Kastner  is  not  free 
from  Mr.  Lee's  propensity  ;  and  unconsciously,  in  one  of 
these  papers  (iv,  329)  suggests  the  psychology  of  the  pro- 
cess : — "In  view  of  Drummond's  debt  to  Desportes,  I 
could  not  persuade  myself  that  he  owed  nothing  to  Ron- 
sard  in  particular.  I  have  accordingly  gone  through 
again,  and  carefully  compared  his  sonnets  with  those  of 
the  chief  of  the  Pleiade,  and  although  the  Scotchman 
naturally  proceeds  with  even  more  than  his  usual  wari- 
ness, there  can  be  no  doubt  that  several  of  his  sonnets  pre- 
sent refashionings  of  certain  sonnets  of  his  famous  prede- 
cessor." One  should  rarely  fail  by  this  method. 

8  Of.  J.  Vianey,  "L' Influence  italienne  chez  les  Pre"cur- 
seurs  de  la  Pleiade,"  Eidletin  italien,  in,  ii,  85  ff. 


wide  extension  of  the  word  "Humanism"  to 
include  "all  the  fields  of  artistic  endeavour" 
(p.  4).  On  page  163  we  read:  "Nashe  for- 
mally admits  his  discipleship  to  Rabelais  .  .  . 
Gabriel  Harvey  deplores  that  Nashe  cast  his  work 
in  '  the  fantastical  mould  of  Rabelais,  that  mon- 
strous wit'  ...  In  spite  of  tuition  gained  from 
other  quarters,  it  is  his  reading  in  Rabelais  which 
accounts  for  most  of  the  peculiar  eccentricities  of 
Nashe' s  prose  style,  for  most  of  his  contumacy  of 
phrase  .  .  .  His  habit  of  inventing  grandiose  words 
is  a  gift  of  Rabelais."  No  one  now  questions  the 
indebtedness  of  Nash  to  Rabelais,  but  it  remains 
to  discover  a  specific  acknowledgment  of  that 
obligation.  In  each  of  the  two  quotations  from 
Harvey  which  Mr.  Lee  has  fused  into  one,9  Rabe- 
lais and  Aretino  are  mentioned  together  as  Nash' a 
models,  Aretino  being  named  first.  Nash  offers 
his  own  explanation  of  his  "huge  woords,"  de- 
claring :  "Of  all  stiles  I  most  affect  and  strive  to 
imitate  Aretines. ' ' 10 

In  his  discussion  of  Montaigne,  Mr.  Lee  notes 
the  publication,  in  1595,  of  the  authorized  text  of 
the  Essaies  ;  then  cites  as  an  instance  of  rapid 
transference  an  entry  in  the  Stationers'  Register  for 
October  20th  of  the  same  year.  Yet  he  had  already 
stated  that  the  Essaies  began  appearing  in  1580  ; 
and  the  entry  in  the  Register  reads  merely, ' '  The 
Essaies  of  MICHAELL  Lord  of  Mountane. ' ' "  Bacon, 
we  are  told  later  (p.  171),  admits  that  Montaigne 
taught  him  to  be  an  essayist.  This  admission  is 
ascribed  to  the  opening  essay,  ' '  Of  Truth, ' '  and 
consists  merely  of  a  short  quotation  from  the 
French  author,  with  such  formal  acknowledgment 
of  this  as  Bacon  might  have  given  any  of  his 
"authorities."  Moreover,  this  essay  did  not  ap- 
pear at  all  until  the  last  redaction  of  the  Essays 
in  1625. 

Word-forms  are  somewhat  overworked  for  evi- 
dence ;  as  in  the  case  (p.  361 )  where  the  spelling 
of  "  masque  "  is  used  as  proof  that  the  dramatic 
type  grew  up  in  England  under  French  stimulus. 
References  in  the  Oxford  Dictionary  would  seem 
rather  to  indicate  that  the  spellings  ' '  mask  [e] ' ' 
and  "masque"  were  used  interchangeably  with 

•  Harvey,  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  i,  218  and  I,  272. 

10  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  m,  152» 

11  Mr.  Lee  quotes  this  entry  in  a  foot-note  to  p.  170. 


182 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


any  possible  significance  until  after  1660,  when 
the  French  spelling  was  specialized  to  dramatic 
purposes. 

In  discussing  the  attempts  of  England  at  clas- 
sical drama,  Mr.  Lee  states  that  :  ' '  Thomas  Kyd 
turned  aside,  at  the  prompting  of  the  Countess  of 
Pembroke,  ...  to  supplement  the  countess's  en- 
deavours as  a  translator  of  Gamier  into  English  " 
(p.  444).  A  few  lines  farther  he  speaks  of  Kyd's 
work  on  Gamier  as  "  under  her  auspices."  Evi- 
dence for  this  is  not  forthcoming.  Kyd's  version 
of  Gamier' s  Cornclie  was  indeed  dedicated  to 
Lady  Pembroke's  aunt,  the  Countess  of  Sussex, 
but  the  pathetic  tone  of  his  own  statements  indi- 
cates anything  but  favorable  recognition  by  the 
Countess  of  Pembroke. 

Throughout  his  work,  Mr.  Lee  seldom  neglects 
an  opportunity  in  any  direction  to  make  a  case 
for  French  influence.12  There  are,  however,  cer- 
tain possibilities,  not  strictly  demonstrable  but 
favorably  regarded  by  many  students  of  the 
period,  which  might  have  found  serious  recog- 
nition in  his  study.  One  of  these  lies  in  the 
cumulative  creative  energy  of  the  group  of  literary 
aspirants  gathered  about  Sidney  and  Spenser  and 
their  '  'Areopagus. ' '  Mr.  Lee  goes  as  far  as  any- 
one in  his  recognition  of  the  Areopagus  as  a  "lit- 
erary club, ' '  even  if  he  does  surprise  us  by  putting 
this  London  organization  under  the  domination  of 
Gabriel  Harvey,  then  at  Cambridge  (p.  238). 
But  he  makes  no  attempt  to  extend  the  signifi- 
cance of  such  a  coterie  beyond  the  metrical  ex- 
perimentation noted  in  the  Harvey-Spenser  let- 
ters. In  the  same  connection  may  be  noted  his 
disappointment  (p.  128)  in  finding  no  English- 
woman to  compare  with  Margaret  of  Navarre  as 
a  '  versatile  benefactress  of  culture.'  Both  Lady 
Margaret  Beaufort  and  Queen  Elizabeth  occur  to 
him  in  vain.  Yet  it  is  possible  to  establish  an 
attractive  parallel  between  Margaret  of  France 
and  the  accomplished  Lady  Mary,  —  "Sidney's 
sister,  Pembroke's  mother," — a  parallel  so  close 

1J  In  this  connection,  the  following  quotation  from  p.  48 
will  be  of  interest  to  students  of  Shakespeare  :  "The  por- 
ter in  Macbeth  (u,  iii,  15)  attests  that  the  English  tailor's 
habitual  offense  was  that  of  'stealing  out  of  a  French 
hose'  (i.  e.  of  slavishly  copying  French  fashions)."  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  Mr.  Lee's  authority  for  this 
gloss. 


that  it  carries  more  conviction  than  several  which 
receive  serious  attention  in  the  book.  Another 
line  of  relationship  which  might  have  been  devel- 
oped with  profit  is  that  between  Montaigne's 
Essaies  and  Lord  Bacon's  experimental  philos- 
ophy, as  expressed  in  the  Novum  Organum. 

In  all  its  parts,  Mr.  Lee  has  given  us  an  emi- 
nently interesting  and  readable  book.  His  mate- 
rial seems  always  well  in  hand,  his  points  are 
stated  with  engaging  clearness,  and  his  style  is 
unusually  vivid  and  pleasing  to  carry  such  a 
burden  of  matter.  Under  the  circumstances  such 
sentences  as  the  following  become  conspicuous  by 
contrast : — 

"As  scholars,  Tudor  England  fell  lamentably 
behind  their  French  neighbors"  (p.  18). 

"  Wyatt's  fondness  for  irregular  lines  of  Skel- 
tonian  brevity  echo  a  French  predilection  to 
which  Marot  was  no  stranger"  (p.  122). 

"  The  octosyllabic  couplets  which  Hey  wood 
chiefly  .  .  .  uses  is  the  habitual  metre  of  the 
French"  (p.  374). 

Undoubtedly  the  book  is  a  valuable  contribution 
to  the  comparative  study  of  literature,  and  will 
carry  its  message  to  many  cultured  readers  who 
have  little  to  do  with  doctoral  dissertations.  It 
is  a  matter  of  genuine  regret,  however,  that  Mr. 
Lee  did  not  direct  his  energies  toward  an  unbiased 
estimate  of  foreign  influences  in  the  period,  rather 
than  hold  this  brief  for  France. 


Sryn  Maw  College. 


A.  H.  UPHAM. 


Die  Gotische  Bibel  herausgegeben  von  WILHELM 
STREITBERG.  (Germanische  Bibliothek.  11. 
Abt. :  Untersuchungen  und  Texte.  3.  Bd. ) 
Zweiter  Teil.  Gotisch-  Griechisch-Deutsches  Wor- 
terbuch.  Heidelberg,  Carl  Winters  Universi- 
tatsbuchhandlung,  1910.  8vo.,  xvi  -f-  180  pp. 

This  second  part  completes  the  new  critical  edi- 
tion of  the  Gothic  Bible,  the  first  part  of  which 
was  reviewed  in  MLN.,  1909,  pp.  181-183. 

While  intended  "fur  die  Zwecke  des  akademi- 
schen  Unterrichts, "  this  Gothic-Greek-German 
dictionary  not  only  provides  for  the  needs  of  the 
beginner,  but  will  prove  helpful  to  the  advanced 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


183 


scholar  as  well.  It  was  not  meant  to  be  complete 
in  the  sense  of  a  dictionary  containing  a  reference 
to  every  passage.  Yet  it  probably  may  claim  to 
be  the  most  detailed  Gothic  dictionary  that  has 
appeared  since  the  publication  of  Ernst  Schulze's 
memorable  Gothisches  Glossar( Magdeburg,  1848). 
It  is,  moreover,  a  work  on  which  the  author  has 
obviously  bestowed  a  great  deal  of  painstakiug 
labor.  Every  page  bears  testimony  to  his  en- 
deavor to  record  the  Gothic  words  as  accurately 
as  possible  both  as  regards  their  form  and  their 
meaning.  Ample  references  are  given  through- 
out not  only  to  single  passages  of  the  Gothic  text,. 
but  also  to  works  like  the  author's  Got.  Elemen- 
tarbuch,  Paul's  Grundriss,  W.  Schulze's  Griech. 
Lelmworter  im  Gotischen,  etc.  Emendations  and 
conjectures  are  carefully  noted.  In  these  and 
other  respects,  this  vocabulary  somewhat  ap- 
proaches the  character  of  a  brief  grammatical 
and  philological  commentary  in  alphabetical 
order. 

The  fact  that  the  Greek  parallels  of  the  Gothic 
words  are  systematically  recorded  adds  much  to 
the  value  of  the  present  work  as  compared  with 
the  current  Gothic  dictionaries.  I  for  my  part 
entirely  agree  with  Streitberg  in  holding  that  for 
us  the  Greek  text  from  which  Ulfilas  translated  is 
the  authoritative  interpretation  of  his  own  version. 

Ulfilas'  interpretation  of  the  Greek  text,  how- 
ever, need  not  in  every  case  coincide  with  that  of 
modern  interpreters,  and  it  probably  will  become 
necessary  in  future  to  distinguish  between  the  two 
(or,  in  other  words,  between  the  actual  meaning 
of  the  Greek  text  and  the  way  in  which  it  was 
understood  by  Ulfilas)  more  carefully  than  has 
been  the  custom  heretofore. 

Take,  f.  i.,  the  word  gakunds  TT«O-/XOV^  (Gal. 
58),  interpreted  generally  (and  so  by  Streitberg)  as 
'  Uberredung.'  This  (i.  e.,  persuasion)  very  likely 
is  the  meaning  in  which  the  word  was  used  by  S. 
Paul.  But,  as  Bernhardt  pointed  out  in  his  note 
to  the  passage  in  question,  7rc«r/u.ovi;  was  inter- 
preted by  Ulfilas  as  '  obedience. '  Two  circum- 
stances serve  to  prove  Bernhardt' s  contention. 
The  one  is  that  TTCKT/XOV^  is  immediately  preceded 
in  v.  7  by  7rei'0«r0ai,  Goth,  ufhausjan,  i.  e.,  '  to 
obey.'  It  is  only  natural  that — not  only  by 
Ulfilas  but  also  by  other  ancient  interpreters — 
the  word  Treur/Aony  should  have  been  connected 


with  TTet'deordui.  The  other  is  that  ga-kunds  in 
Gothic  obviously  belongs  to  the  verb  ga-kunnan 
'  to  obey.'  It  becomes  clear(  then,  that  ga-kunds 
is  identical  with  the  noun  ga-kunfa  (Dat.  ga- 
kunflai,  Luc.  3,  23).  The  latter,  according  to 
Streitberg  ' '  iibertragt  unklarer  Weise  dp^o/uvos. ' ' 
It  can  hardly  be  doubted,  however,  that  Bern- 
hardt here  too  has  interpreted  the  Gothic  phrase 
correctly  as  '  unter  Gehorsam. '  Another  instance 
in  which  Streitberg  might  have  acknowledged  a 
difference  between  Ulfilas'  conception  of  the  Greek 
text  and  that  of  modern  interpreters  is  that  of 
ana-kaurjan  "  €Tri/3aptlv  beschweren,"  II.  Cor. 
2,  5.  Here,  it  seems  to  me,  the  meaning  re- 
corded by  Streitberg  is  probably  correct  so  far  as 
the  Gothic  is  concerned.  It  should  have  been 
pointed  out,  however,  either  in  a  note  to  the  text 
or  in  the  vocabulary  that  the  passage  has  been 
interpreted  in  various  ways.  May  be  that  Ulfilas 
construed  eirifiapw  with  the  following  Travras  i/*a« 
so  as  to  interpret — wrongly — like  Luther  "auf 
dass  ich  nicht  euch  alle  beschwere";  or  that  he 
took  TTavras  v/wis  as  the  object  of  XtXvirrjKfv  and 
understood  Iva.  p.rj  firiftapu  with  deWette  (t.  e.,  de 
Wette's  earlier  version,  cf.  Bernhardt)  "um  ihn 
nicht  zu  sehr  zu  beschweren."  As  Streitberg  in 
his  text  has  a  comma  after  ewifiapia,  he  seems  to 
ascribe  to  Ulfilas  the  latter  interpretation.  What 
S.  Paul  had  in  mind,  apparently,  was  something 
different.  De  Wette's  final  version  (4.  ed. ,  1858) 
of  tva  pr)  fin/3ap<a  was  ' '  damit  ich  nicht  zu  viel 
sage,"  and  this  translation  is  at  present  pretty 
generally  accepted  (e.  g.,  in  the  revised  English 
version  ' '  that  I  press  not  too  heavily  " ;  in  the 
revised  Luther  version  ' '  auf  dass  ich  nicht  zu 
viel  sage";  cp.  also  Weizsacker,  Das  N.  T., 
"damit  ich  nicht  zu  viel  tue").  It  is  hardly 
possible  to  ascribe  the  latter  meaning  to  Goth. 
anakaurjan. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  interpreting  the  word 
andbahtida  II  Cor.  3,  3.  Here  the  meaning  of 
the  verb  and-bahtjan,  however,  is  not  'leisten  '  (as 
given  in  Streitberg' s  dictionary),  but  'besorgen.' 

I  find  no  occasion  for  criticism  in  reference 
to  the  formal  side  (i.  e.,  the  transcription  of  the 
Gothic  words,  etc. )  of  this  dictionary,  except  per- 
haps with  regard  to  the  fact  that  a  distinction  has 
been  made  between  short  and  long  u  in  genuine 
Gothic  words  but  not  in  foreign  words.  If  uta, 


184 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xx vi,  No.  6. 


jus  receive  a  macron,  why  not  ludaius,  ludas, 
Justus,  etc.?  This,  of  course,  is  rather  a  subor- 
dinate matter. 

This  second  part  of  Streitberg's  Got.  Bibel  is 
accompanied  by  a  brief  Supplement  to  the  first 
part,  giving  (pp.  ix-xiv)  an  account  of  the  newly 
found  Giesseu  Fragments  of  Ulfilas'  translation. 
While  not  adding  any  new  word  to  the  Gothic 
vocabulary,  the  two  fragments  have  thrown  new 
light  on  the  history  of  the  Gothic  text,  for  the 
reason  that  they  turned  out  to  be  remnants  of  a 
Gothic-Latin  parallel  edition  of  the  Bible. 

In  the  preface,  Prof.  Streitberg  expresses  the 
hope  that  he  may  able  to  compile  at  a  later  date 
a  complete  Gothic  dictionary,  embodying  every 
form  actually  found  in  the  Gothic  text.  Grateful 
then  as  we  are  for  the  present  book,  we  take  it  for 
granted  that  we  may  regard  it  only  as  an  instal- 
ment toward  the  future  more  comprehensive  work. 


HERMANN  COLLITZ. 


Johns  Hopkins  University. 


RECENT  LITERATURE  ON   FRENCH 
ROMANTICISM 

PAUL  LAFOND,  L'Aube  romantiqae:  Jules  de 
Resseguier  et  ses  amis  .  .  .  Paris,  Mercure  de 
France,  1910.  354  pp. 

LEON  SECHE,  Muses  romantiques  :  Delphine  Gay, 
— Mad.  de  Girardin, — dans  ses  rapports  avecLa- 
martine,  Victor  Hugo,  Balzac,  Rachel,  J.  San- 
deau,  Dumas,  Eug.  Sue  et  George  Sand  (Docu- 
ments ine'dits).  Paris,  Mercure  de  France, 
1910.  338  pp. 

ALPHONSE  SECHE  ET  JULES  BERTAUT,  Au  Temps 
du  Romantisme,  Etudes  pittoresques  et  litteraires. 
Paris,  Sansot  &  Cie.,  1909.  259  pp. 

Correspondance  entre  Victor  Hugo  et  Paul  Meu- 
rice.  Preface  de  JULES  CLARETIE.  Paris, 
Charpentier,  1909.  484  pp. 

All  these  volumes  will  help  materially  the  stu- 
dent of  the  various  periods  of  French  Romanti- 
cism ;  they  testify  to  the  non-abating  interest  in 
that  fascinating  epoch. 

Regarding  the  first  mentioned  we  need  not  enter 


into  many  details.  The  name  of  Jules  de  Resse'- 
guier  (born  1788)  is  usually  associated  with  that 
of  Ulrich  Guttinger  (born  1785);  they  are  the 
two  "  f reres  aines  "  of  Romanticism.  The  first's 
most  famous  volume  of  verses,  Tableaux  poeti- 
ques  (1827)  appeared  one  year  before  the  Orien- 
tales.  But  Ress6guier  never  moved  forward  with 
his  ideas  like  Hugo  ;  he  remained  to  the  end 
(1862)  the  faithful  royalist  and  catholic  of  before 
1830.  Moreover,  it  is  more  the  man  than  the 
writer  who  is  playing  an  important  part  in  lit- 
erary history. 

All  that  need  be  said  about  J.  de  R.  has  been 
ably  summarized  by  Lafond  in  his  Preface  of  47 
pages.  The  book  itself  consists  of  letters  addressed 
to  various  important  poets  and  writers  ;  as  such 
they  present  no  great  interest,  but  they  may  be 
very  useful  documents.  Especially  valuable  are 
the  numerous  letters  regarding  the  Academic  des 
jeux  fioraux  de  Toulouse.  About  70  pages  of 
good  explanatory  notes  are  given  at  the  end  of 
the  volume, 

M.  Le"on  Se"ch6  has  been  for  years  diligently 
searching  libraries,  archives,  and  private  corre- 
spondences to  give  us  a  vivid  picture  of  the  period 
of  Romanticism.  For  those  especially  who  work 
away  from  Paris,  his  books  contain  treasures  of 
information.  M.  Seche'  has  spoken  of  Delphine 
Gay,  ' '  la  muse  de  la  patrie, ' '  in  previous  works 
(jz.  g.,  in  his  Cenacle  de  la  Muse  francaise') .  Here 
he  deals  especially  with  her  relations  with  Lamar- 
tine,  Balzac  and  Rachel.  It  suffices  to  say  that 
scholars  will  find  the  book  indispensable. 

In  the  first  essay  of  Autour  du  Romantisme, 
the  authors,  Alphonse  Seche  (the  son  of  Leon 
Seche)  and  Jules  Bertaut,  revive  a  character  long 
since  forgotten,  the  Vicomte  d' Arlincourt.  He 
was  quite  famous  in  the  early  days  of  Romanti- 
cism, and  a  good  sample  of  a  whole  class  of  lit- 
erary adventurers.  As  a  help  to  understanding 
the  times  such  an  essay  on  d' Arlincourt  is  by  no 
means  futile.  At  the  same  time,  students  of  Bal- 
zac will  find  it  useful,  as  the  Vicomte  is  quite  fre- 
quently alluded  to  by  the  characters  in  the  Gome- 
die  humaine.  Other  essays  are  :  Alfred  de  Vigny, 
auteur  dramatique  ;  Le  role  desfemmes  dans  la  vie 
de  Lamartine  (not  much  that  is  new,  but  a  good 
summary  of  recent  investigations  regarding  La- 
martine's  life,  especially  Mad.  Emile  Ollivier's 


June,  1911.  J 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


185 


Valentine  de  Lamartine,  Hachette,  1908);   Bal- 
zac, critique  littcraire  (an  interesting  aud  rather 
ignored  aspect  of  B. ;  good  account  of  the  parallel 
he  draws  between  Fenimore  Cooper  and  Walter 
Scott,  all  in  favor  of  Scott,  as  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  man  \vho  was  more  or  less  the  disciple 
of  the  author  of  Ivanhoe — amusing  illustrations 
of  Balzac's  prejudice  against  Sainte  Beuve — un- 
bounded and  at  the  time  almost  paradoxical  ad- 
miration for  Stendhal).    Very  remarkable  are  the 
two  longer  chapters  devoted  to  Beranger  and  to 
David  a"  Angers.    Nothing  keener  has  been  written 
about  the  part  Berauger  played  in  politics  under  the 
first  Empire,  the  Restoration,  and  the  Monarchy 
of  July,  aud   nothing  could   be  fairer  than  the 
appreciation  (one  might  almost  say  rehabilitation) 
of  Beranger  as  a  poet.    In  the  essay,  David  d' An- 
gers, we  see   presented  the  combination,  so  fre- 
quent in  France,  of  artist  and  patriot.  More  than 
Chateaubriand,  than  Victor  Hugo  or  Lamartine, 
David  d' Angers  was  a  man  of  action  in  politics, 
who  exposed  himself  to  the  shots  of  his  enemies, 
or,  if  need  be,  of  his  own  people.     His  frank  op- 
position to  Louis  Bonaparte  sent  him  into  exile. 
He  made   his  mistakes,  but  certainly  no   more 
heroic  figure  appeared  in  France  in  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century  than  that  admirer  of  the 
old  Romans. 

The  publication  of  the  Correspondance  entre 
Victor  Hugo  et  Paul  Meurice  is,  for  two  reasons, 
very  important.  First,  the  means  of  becoming 
acquainted  with  V.  H.  the  man,  are  very  limited. 
His  biographies  are  either  apotheoses,  or  dispar- 
agements, and  V.  H.  raconte  can  hardly  count  as 
reliable  from  the  psychological  point  of  view. 
Further,  in  his  own  works,  V.  H.  rarely  appears 
except  as  Olympic,  or  the  Mage,  and  at  times  as 
child,  father  and  grandfather.  So  "letters"  re- 
main the  only  touchstone. 

V.  H.,  after  1830,  did  not  mix  much  with 
fellow  writers  of  his  generation.  In  this  Corre- 
spondance with  Meurice  it  is  very  striking  how 
seldom  names  of  colleagues  in  the  realm  of  letters 
are  mentioned  ;  just  here  and  there  a  glimpse  of 
Michelet  (pp.  275-6,  very  interesting),  Lamar- 
tine, Blanc,  Quinet,  Baudelaire,  or  Taine — an 
exception  ought  to  be  made  for  Delphine  Gay  de 
Girardiu.  He  has  been  misjudged  on  account  of 
his  silence  about  his  contemporaries  ;  possibly  too 


severely  criticized.  If  he  was  conscious  that  he 
was  great  enough  not  to  need  the  help  of  others 
in  order  to  succeed,  it  was  human  nature  that  the 
others  should  resent  it ;  and  it  was  unavoidable 
that  the  judgments  of  colleagues  would  be  often 
unkind  appreciations  of  V.  H.  the  man.1  So  it 
happened  that  his  correspondence  is  chiefly  with 
people  who  were  so  unmistakably  inferior  to  him 
that  jealousy  was  not  possible.  Even  in  this  vol- 
ume we  find  Hugo  very  conscious  of  his  genius, 
but  at  the  same  time  it  is  very  comforting  to  see 
him  so  human  aud  so  loving.  The  devotion  of  a 
Paul  Meurice  was  indeed  unique,  and  most  cer- 
tainly the  popularity  and  influence  of  V.  H.  in 
Paris  would  have  been  considerably  diminished 
during  the  twenty  years  of  exile,  had  not  this 
friend  been  so  completely  self-sacrificing  to  the 
Hugo  interests.  V.  H.  realized  this,  and  we  see 
that  he  never  took  for  granted  the  abnegation  of 
his  friend  ;  he  finds  sincere  words  to  express  his 
thanks.  "Si  j'ai  jamais" — he  writes  one  day 
(Aug.  19,  1855)  —  "dans  1'aveuir,  comme  vous 
le  dites,  quelque  lueur  qui  ressemble  a  une  aure- 
ole, votre  ami  tie,  mon  doux  et  vaillaut  poete,  en 
sera  le  plus  charmant  rayon  "  (p.  48). 

This  book,  all  told,  is  a  most  beautiful  testi- 
mony both  to  V.  H.'s  and  to  Meurice' s  charac- 
ters. Nobody  can  read  it  without  feeling  that 
the  great  exile  on  the  English  isles  was  a  good 
aud  sound  man.  Indeed,  whoever  had  read  Pauca 
meae,  or  the  poems  in  which  he  sings  childhood, 
or  such  inspirations  as  Les  pauvres  gens,  had  al- 
ways suspected  it.  What  may  seem  strange,  after 
all,  is  that  his  genius  did  not  make  V.  H.  more 
vain  than  he  was. 

The  second  element  that  lends  interest  to  the 
book  is  that;  as  Claretie,  who  writes  the  introduc- 
tion, says  so  well  (p.  xix):  "c'est  mieux  qu'uue 
correspondance,  c'est  de  Phistoire."  The  corres- 
pondence covers  the  years  1851-1870,  the  whole 
period  of  exile,  as  well  as  the  shorter  periods 
when  V.  H.  was  afterward  away  from  Paris. 
Those  who  have  tried  to  get  a  precise  idea  of 
V.  H.'s  doings  during  the  exile  will  find  much 
help  in  this  correspondence.  Here  are  a  few 
points  :  V.  H.'s  account  of  the  " expioulcheune  " 

'See  an  example  of  such  severe  judgments  of  "ce 
miserable  Victor  Hugo,"  in  the  book  of  Lafond  men- 
tioned above,  on  pp.  272-273. 


186 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


(expulsion)  from  Jersey  (Marine  Terrace  Oct.  26, 
1855);  of  his  settling  iu  Guernesey  (Hauteville 
House) ;  and  of  the  Alien  Bill,  "qui  nous  frappe, 
mais  les  de'shonore "  (the  English),  and  which 
came  near  sending  V.  H.  to  America  (pp.  50- 
56).  Pages  58  ff.  will  be  a  welcome  supplement 
of  information  to  that  offered  in  the  Ollendorff 
edition,  on  the  circumstances  of  publication  and 
the  success  of  the  Contemplations  and  of  the  first 
volumes  of  the  Legende  des  siecles.  The  same  is 
true  of  Les  Miaerables  (p.  159  ff.).  We  hear  of  a 
plan  made  to  publish  a  second  volume  of  the 
Chdtiments  (p.  370  ff.).  On  p.  331  ff.  there  is 
given  the  history  of  Le  Rappel  (an  anti-napoleonic 
paper).  Finally,  one  will  find  the  amusing  in- 
formation that  V.  H.  was  planning  to  write  an 
encyclopedia  Tout  pour  tons  (p.  282) — as  if 
genius  had  time  to  be  accurate.  A  good  sample 
ofV.  H,'s  scholarship  is  given  just  a  few  pages 
further  on  ;  he  maintains,  in  spite  of  Meurice's 
very  wise  suggestions,  that  the  last  part  of  the 
word  Boulevard  comes  from  varte,  vert,  "green." 
I  cannot  close  without  mentioning  the  very 
valuable  footnotes,  with  exact  dates  of  events, 
usually  so  hard  to  obtain. 

ALBERT  SCHINZ. 

Bryn  Mawr  College. 


Del  Siglo  de  Oro,  Estudios  Liter arios  por  BLANCA 
DE  LOS  Bios.  Madrid,  Bernardo  Rodriguez, 
1910. 

The  contributions  of  Dona  Blanca  de  los  Rios 
to  the  biographies  of  Tirso  de  Molina  and  other 
writers  of  the  golden  age  have  long  been  appre- 
ciated by  students  of  Spanish  literature  ;  but  owing 
to  her  unfortunate  habit  of  publishing  the  results 
of  her  investigations  in  daily  newspapers  and  pop- 
ular journals,  she  has  received  less  credit  abroad 
than  is  her  due.  Few  of  even  the  best  equipped 
foreign  libraries  contain  files  of  all  the  periodicals 
to  which  she  has  contributed.  Consequently,  it 
has  been  very  difficult  for  those  outside  of  Spain 
to  control  the  material  she  has  offered.  Fortu- 
nately, most  of  these  fugitive  studies  have  now 
been  collected  in  a  single  volume  which  is  merely 
the  prelude  to  the  long-promised  complete  biog- 


raphy of  her  favorite  author.  Mene"ndez  y  Pelayo 
prefaces  the  work  with  an  interesting  introduction, 
the  more  valuable  in  that  it  does  not  consist  of 
mere  fulsome  praise  as  is  too  often  the  case  with 
such  prologues.  While  thoroughly  sympathetic 
and  appreciative  of  the  author' s  merits,  Mene"ndez 
does  not  gloss  over  her  faults. 

Dona  Blanca' s  contributions  are  of  two  sorts  : 
first,  the  results  of  her  researches  in  the  archives  ; 
second,  her  critical  interpretation  of  the  new  facts 
she  has  unearthed.  Those  dependent  upon  Cota- 
relo  y  Mori  for  their  knowledge  of  Tirso' s  biog- 
raphy would  scarcely  suspect  the  extent  and  im- 
portance of  Senora  de  los  Rios's  discoveries.1  For 
this  the  author  herself  may  be  partly  to  blame 
because  she  refrained  from  publishing  the  com- 
plete list  of  her  discoveries  until  the  year  1906 
when  Cotarelo's  second  biography  was  already  in 
press.  It  is  obvious  that  Tirso' s  two  biographers 
are  not  working  in  the  most  perfect  harmony.  In 
view  of  these  facts,  we  may  perhaps  pardon  Dona 
Blanca  the  very  human  weakness  of  criticizing 
Cotarelo  for  failing  to  make  personal  researches 
in  the  archives,  quoting  the  following  statement : 
"The  public  and  private  archives  which,  in  these 
latter  years,  have  shown  themselves  so  profuse  in 
information  relating  to  other  great  writers  remain 
dumb  only  in  the  case  of  Tirso  de  Molina."  Dona 
Blanca  alone  has  unearthed  over  thirty  important 
documents  relating  to  Tirso,  and  many  more 
throwing  light  upon  his  associates,  convent  life, 
etc. — all  this  in  addition  to  the  important  discov- 
eries of  Gallardo,  Serrano  y  Sanz,  and  Perez 
Pastor. 

Doiia  Blanca' s  discoveries  are  the  fruits  of  many 
years  of  patient  investigation.  When  in  1885  the 
academy  offered  a  prize  for  a  biography  of  Tirso, 
the  young  poet  and  novelist  prevailed  over  the 
Valladolid  professor,  Pedro  Munos  Pena,  who 
most  infelicitously  entitled  the  first  chapter  of  his 
study  :  Imposibilidad  de  hacer  la  biografia  de 
Tirso  por  falta  de  datos.  Again,  it  would  be  un- 
kind to  begrudge  the  author  the  manifest  pleasure 
she  takes  in  recalling  this  circumstance.  Not  con- 
tent with  these  early  laurels,  Dona  Blanca  has 

1  Comcdias  de  Tirso  de  Molina,  Discurso  preliminar  ( Ma- 
drid, 1906),  Vol.  i,  pp.  xyiii,  Ixxviii.  In  his  previous 
work,  Tirso  de  Molina  (Madrid,  1893),  Cotarelo  is  a  trifle 
more  generous  in  alluding  to  Seuora  de  los  BIOS. 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


187 


been  prosecuting  her  researches  in  the  archives 
for  over  twenty -five  years.  Those  of  Guadalajara, 
Soria,  Trujillo,  Madrid,  Salamanca,  Sevilla,  and 
Alcala"  de  Henares  have  been  ransacked.  The 
results,  if  not  so  valuable  and  sensational  as  Pe*rez 
Pastor's  discoveries  relating  to  Cervantes  and 
Lope  de  Vega  (the  life  of  an  ecclesiastic  was 
naturally  less  eventful  than  that  of  a  soldier 
of  fortune),  are  nevertheless  extremely  interest- 
ing. The  long  mooted  question  as  to  the  date  of 
Tirso's  journey  to  Santo  Domingo  has  now  been 
definitely  settled.  Documents  found  in  the  ar- 
chives of  the  Indies  show  that  the  voyage  was 
made  in  1616.  Others  found  in  Guadalajara 
prove  that  Tirso  was  there  present  in  June,  1618. 
Cotarelo,  disputing  the  long  accepted  date  of  1625, 
came  near  the  truth  when  he  designated  1615  as 
the  year  when  this  voyage  was  made,  basing  his 
conclusions  upon  an  erroneous  statement  made  by 
Tirso  in  the  Deleitar  aprovechando,*  Fortunately, 
the  controversy  is  now  at  an  end,  and  one  of  Fari- 
nelli's  arguments  for  deny  ing  Tirso  the  authorship 
of  the  Burlador  de  Sevilla  falls  to  the  ground.3 
It  is  most  curious  to  know  that  a  papeletu  left  by 
Gallardo  states  the  date  correctly.  It  is  probable 
that  he,  too,  saw  the  cedula  authorizing  the 
voyage. 

Another  interesting  discovery  is  a  document 
showing  the  indirect  way  in  which  Tirso,  while 
Comendador  de  Trujillo,  collected  payment  for 
three  plays  which  he  sold  for  300  reals  each  to 
Josef  de  Salazar,  a  Sevillan  manager, — a  proof 
that  he  was  still,  perhaps  secretly,  writing  plays 
in  1629,  and  disproving  Cotarelo' s  statement  that 
the  Mercenariau  had  given  over  writing  plays  at 
that  period.*  It  is  impossible  to  discuss  Dona 
Blanca's  other  discoveries  in  detail.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  the  various  steps  in  Tellez's  ecclesiastical 
preferment  may  now  be  more  accurately  traced 
than  formerly,  and  many  another  important  bio- 
graphical gap  has  been  filled  in.  Twelve  years 
ago  she  published  in  La  ilustracion  espanola  y 
americana  the  supposedly  lost  birth  certificate  of 
Lope  de  Vega.  Two  years  before  that,  she  had 
published  in  La  espaila  moderna  the  results  of  her 

20p.  cit.,  pp.  xviiiff. 

s  Farinelli,  Don  Giovanni,  Giornale  slorico,  Vol.  xxvil, 
p.  32. 

4 Cotarelo,  op.  at.,  p.  xliii. 


investigations  in  Salamanca  in  which  she  brought 
to  light  interesting  discoveries  relating  to  Alarcon, 
Gongora,  Lifidn  de  Riaza,  Argensola,  etc.  These 
articles  are  reprinted  in  the  present  volume.5 

As  a  diligent  investigator  of  archives,  Dofia 
Blanca  is  deserving  of  all  praise.  We  admire  her 
patient  industry  and  envy  her  her  good  fortune. 
As  a  literary  critic  she  is  less  happy.  Starting 
with  the  a  priori  assumption  that  realism  is  the 
only  true  expression  of  art,  *he  seeks  to  exalt 
Tirso  high  above  his  contemporaries.  In  doing 
so  she  has  been  unjust  in  her  estimate  of  other 
authors,  particularly  Lope,  Calderon,  and  Alar- 
con.  She  reverses  the  process  by  which  German 
romanticism  elevated  Calderon.  According  to 
her,  Lope  initiates  the  Spanish  drama,  Tirso  at- 
tains unto  its  apogee,  while  Calderon  represents 
nothing  more  than  degeneracy.  She  can  brook 
no  rival  to  her  hero.  Meneudez  y  Pelayo  rebukes 
her  for  this,  while  admitting  that  he,  too,  in  his 
first  enthusiasm  for  Lope  de  Vega,  did  Calderou 
scant  justice.  He  now  makes  the  amende  hono- 
rable, characterizes  his  Calderon  y  su  teatro  as  a 
somewhat  juvenile  production,  and  feels  that  he 
dwelt  too  exclusively  upon  Calderon' s  defects,  and 
spoke  too  little  of  his  merits.  The  work  in  ques- 
tion, he  says,  does  not  represent  his  present  views. 
A  few  decades  since,  it  was  necessary  that  criticism 
should  hold  a  brief  for  both  Lope  de  Vega  and 
Tirso  de  Molina.  But  the  erroneous  estimates  of 
past  generations  have  been  corrected  ;  there  is  no 
danger  that  Lope  and  Tirso  will  henceforth  fail  to 
receive  their  due.  There  is  greater  present  need 
of  a  reaction  which  will  restore  to  Calderon  some- 
thing of  his  diminished  prestige.  The  tone  of 
Dona  Blauca's  Atheneum  addresses  is  that  of  one 
asserting  a  'claim  all  but  universally  denied.  It  is 
what  one  might  have  expected  in  the  days  of  Hart- 
zenbusch.  She  has  forced  the  note  somewhat  in 
vindicating  an  author  who  now  needs  no  vindi- 
cation. 

Doiia  Blanca  takes  issue  with  those  critics  who 
have  censured  Tirso  for  his  immorality.  She  is 
probably  correct  in  thinking  his  work  no  more 

5  The  article  l  Estudti  Cervantt*  en  Salamanca  f  Espafla 
moderna,  April-May,  1899,  affords  a  good  example  of  the 
imaginative  way  in  which  Doiia  Blanca  often  interprets 
her  discoveries  in  the  archives.  In  spite  of  the  ingenuity 
of  the  article,  it  has  failed  to  convince. 


188 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


licentious  than  that  of  many  other  authors  of  the 
age.  Study  the  manuscript  borradores  of  almost 
any  dramatic  author  of  the  time  and  it  will  be 
found  that  they  contain  numerous  obscene  jokes 
which  the  censor  has  carefully  stricken  out  and 
which  later  editors  have  also  omitted.  Is  it  not 
likely  that  the  works  of  Tirso,  owing  perhaps  to 
the  author's  high  position  in  the  church,  were  less 
carefully  inspected  than  those  of  others  ?  But  it 
is  as  absurd  to  make  him  out  a  plaster  saint  as  it 
is  to  suppose  him  to  have  been  a  skirted  Don  Juan 
and  here  the  author  pushes  her  vindication  too  far. 
Tellez  was  doubtless  a  genial,  full-blooded  man  to 
whom  nothing  human  was  alien.  He  may  not, 
like  the  Archpriest  of  Hita,  have  lived  the  life  of 
a  picaro,  but  he  was  one  at  heart  for  all  that. 

For  one  who  has  devoted  over  twenty-five  years 
to  the  study  of  Tirso,  Dona  Blanca  is  surprisingly 
ignorant  of  the  relations  in  which  her  author  stood 
towards  his  contemporaries.  Her  studies  of  other 
writers  of  the  time  have  been  to  little  purpose. 
She  grants  him  much  greater  originality  than  he 
deserves  and  seems  to  be  utterly  unaware  of  his 
great  indebtedness  to  Lope  and  the  novelists. 
Calderon  is  branded  as  a  plagiarist  because  thir- 
teen of  his  plays  are  taken  from  Tirso' s  repertoire. 
This  is  understating  rather  than  overstating  Cal- 
der6n's  indebtedness  ;  but  if  plagiarism  is  a  crime 
in  Calderou,  it  ought  in  fairness  to  be  noted  that 
Tirso' s  indebtedness  to  Lope  and  others  was  at 
least  equally  great.  It  would  be  easy  to  make 
out  a  much  longer  list  of  Tirso' s  plays  inspired  by 
the  works  of  other  authors.  Tirso  is  credited 
with  the  invention  of  many  character  types  that 
go  back  to  Lope  and  others.  Even  Don  Juan 
Tenorio  is  not  so  original  a  creation  as  is  com- 
monly supposed,  as  one  who  has  read  Farinelli 
ought  to  have  known.  One  cannot  agree  with 
Dona  Blanca  when  she  maintains  that  Lope 
painted  successful  female  portraits  only  after 
Tirso  had  supplied  the  models.  The  weight  of 
evidence  tends  to  prove  the  contrary.  Tirso,  in 
borrowing,  frequently  improves  ;  but  as  a  deline- 
ator of  character,  Lope,  when  at  his  best,  was  his 
equal  as  Meneudez  well  shows  in  the  introduction. 

Nevertheless,  taken  all  in  all,  Tirso' s  charac- 
ters are  perhaps  the  most  human  and  lifelike  to 
be  found  in  the  classic  drama  of  Spain.  But  is 
this  not  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  he  was  more 


than  any  of  his  rivals  under  the  influence  of  the 
novelists  ?  That  realism  which  Senora  de  los  Eios 
so  passionately  admires  found  better  expression  in 
the  novel  than  on  the  stage  ;  but  not  a  hint  is 
oflered  that  Tirso  drew  any  inspiration  from  this 
genre.  Both  Lope  and  Tirso  drew  freely  from 
Italian  novelle,  but  Tirso  was  more  influenced  by 
Cervantes,  his  "Spanish  Boccaccio,"  and  the 
romances  of  roguery. 

Dona  Blanca' s  attitude  is  too  exclusively  that 
of  an  attorney  pleading  a  case.  She  will  admit 
no  scrap  of  evidence  tending  to  minimize  the  high 
degree  of  originality  which  she  attributes  to  the 
principal  object  of  her  studies.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  in  her  forthcoming  book  she  will  go  to  more 
pains  to  give  Tirso  his  proper  historical  setting,  to 
trace  the  influences  he  underwent,  and  to  show 
how  he  in  turn  influenced  others.  Much  remains 
to  be  done  in  the  study  of  Tirso' s  sources. 

The  most  valuable  portion  of  the  present  work 
is  the  Biografia  documentada  in  which  the  author 
records  the  results  of  her  researches  in  the  ar- 
chives. The  great  value  of  these  discoveries  far 
outweigh  any  fault  that  may  be  found  with  the 
rest  of  the  volume  ;  for  these  faults  spring  from 
that  same  enthusiasm  which  has  held  her  steadily 
to  her  task  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 


GEORGE  TYLER  NORTHUP. 


Princeton  University. 


I.  G.  MILLARDET,  Recueil  de  textes  des  ancient 
dialectes  landais  .  .  .,  Paris,  Champion,   1910, 
in  4°,  lxviii-340  pp. 

II.  G.  MILLARDET,  Petit  Atlas  linguistique  d'une 
region  des  Landes,  Toulouse,  Privat,  1910,  in 
8°,  lxiv-428  pp.  et  une  carte.     (Bibliotheque 
Meridionale,  lere  serie,  t.  xiii. ) 

III.  G.  MILLARDET,  Etudes  de  dialectologie  lan- 
daise.    Le  developpement  des  phonemes  addition- 
nets,    Toulouse,   Privat,   1910,  in  8°,  224  pp. 
(Bibliotheque  Meridionale,  lere  serie,  t.  xiv. ) 

II  n'existe  pas — que  je  sache — en  France  ni 
ailleurs  de  region  dont  les  parlers  populaires, 
anciens  et  actuels,  aient  e'te'  explores  avec  autant 
de  conscience  et  de  me"thodique  precision  que  le 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


189 


coin  gascon  du  departement  des  Landes  auquel 
M.  Millardet  vient  de  consacrer— pour  de*buter— 
trois  volumes.  Cette  belle  contribution  a  la  dia- 
lectologie  fran9aise  me"rite,  par  son  exceptionnelle 
importance,  de  retenir  longuement  1' attention  de 
quiconque  voudra  desormais  se  consacrer  aux 
mSmes  Etudes. 

I.  Le  Recueil  de  textes  des  anciens  dialectes  Ian- 
dais  renferme  des  documents  ine"dits  (chartes,  re- 
gistres,  terriers,  etc.)  re'dige's  en  langue  vulgaire 
entre  1251  et  1588  dans  presque  toute  Pe"tendue 
du  pays  landais.  M.  M.  s'est  montre"  tr£s  se"vdre l 
pour  le  choix  de  ces  documents  :  il  n'admet,  avec 
toute  raison,  que  des  originaux  (autant  qu'il  a 
ete  possible)  date's  et  strictement  localises.  Ces 
textes  sont  re"partis  en  six  sections  (Mont-de-Mar- 
san,  Roquefort-de-Marsan,  Villeneuve-de-Marsan, 
Saint-Sever,  Tartas,  Albret  et  regions  voisines 2)  a 
I'interieurdesquelles  ils  sont  ordonne"s  chronolo- 
giquement ;  des  indications  bibliographiques  sur 
les  sources  manuscrites  et  imprimees  sont  donne*es 
en  t£te  de  chaque  section.  Les  documents  ne 
sont  pas  tous  publics  intSgralement  :  les  formules 
oiseuses  des  notaires  ont  6t4  e'limine'es  (il  en  reste 
encore  passablement),  mais  1'on  peut  tenir  pour 
certain  que  rien  d'inte'ressant  pour  1'histoire  lin- 
guistique  de  la  region  n'a  ete  sacrifie.  Les  actes 
sont  publics  avec  le  plus  grand  soin3:  les  i  et  lesjf, 

1  Peut-etre  meme  trop  severe:  il  a  pris  "autant  que  pos- 
sible lea  documents  portant  le  nom  et  surtout  la  residence 
du  notaire  re"dacteur"  (p.  iv).  L'un  des  resultats  du 
systeme,c'est  que  les  "  regions  "  auxquelles  appartiennent 
ces  documents  sont  souvent  repre'sente'es  par  de  simples 
localites :  il  n'y  a  dans  la  3e  section  que  des  actes  de 
Saint-Sever,  dans  la  lere  que  des  actes  se  rapportant  a 
Mont-de-Marsan  (sauf  un,  pp.  35-37,  que  M.  M.  rap- 
porte  a  Canenx,  mais  qui  est  un  contrat  de  vente  entre 
deux  habitants  de  Mont-de-Marsan ,  dressg  par  un  notaire 
de  Mont-de-Marsan),  etc.  On  en  vient  a  se  demander  si 
cette  precision  excessive  ne  nous  prive  pas  parfois  de  cer- 
tains points  de  comparaison  non  negligeables  ;  applique"e 
aux  documents  en  langue  vulgaire  du  domaine  d'oi'l,  cette 
method  e  aurait  poureffet  d'exclure  si  peu  pr£s  tout  ce  que 
Ton  possMe  (cf. ,  p.  ex., les  actes  sur  lesquels  M.  Philipon 
fonde  ses  Etudes  des  Parlers  du  duche  de  Bourgogne  aux 
xin«  et  XI ve  sieclts,  Romania,  xxxix,  p.  476  sqq. ). 

s  Une  carte  du  departement  des  Landes  n'eut  sans  doute 
pas  e"t£  inutile :  il  suffisait,  a  la  rigueur,  de  reproduire 
celle  qui  termine  le  Petit  Atlas. 

1  P.  32,  1.  17  :  mot  e  egregj,  suppr.  e  ou  /.  mot  [no6i«]  e 
egr.  (cf.  p.  160,  1.  16);  p.  55,  1.  18  :  au  lieu  de  Pnsot,  1. 
Pusot ;  p.  155,  1.  22  Viuizano  [?]  est  a  la  Table  Viuzano ; 


les  u  et  les  v  sont  distingue"s  conforme'ment  aux 
originaux,  les  resolutions  des  abre"viations  sont 
toujours  indiquees  en  italiques,  et  les  lignes  des 
originaux  sont  donne"es  entre  crochets.4 

Ce  recueil  de  textes  est  precede  d'  une  Introduc- 
tion qui  n'est  qu'un  "  simple  repertoire  des  formes 
et  des  principales  particularites  de  syntaxe  "  (p. 
viii):  ainsi  s'expliquent  sans  doute  1' absence  de 
toute  etude  phonetique  et  le  renvoi  a  un  volume 
futur  d' Etudes  de  dialectologie  landaise  d'  indica- 
tions sur  la  gene"se  des  formes  et  leur  repartition 
geographique. 8  Un  appendice  (pp.  229-251) 
comprend  des  traductions  en  dialectes  modernes 
(notation  phone" tique) ;  le  volume  se  termine  par 
un  Glossaire  (ou  manquent  les  termes  qui  figurent 
dans  le  Dictionnaire  bearnais  de  Lespy  et  Ray- 
mond) et  par  une  Table  des  noins  de  lieux  et  de 
personnes. 

Ce  livre,  qui  apporte,  pour  les  Landes,  un  tr£s 
pr6cieux  complement  au  Recueil  de  textes  de  I'an- 
cien  dialecte  gascon  de  Luchaire,  est  un  modele 
de  ce  qu'on  souhaiterait  avoir  pour  chacun  des 
departements  francais. 

II.  En  regard  des  documents  anciens  groupes 
dans  le  Recueil,  le  Petit  Atlas  linguistique  d'une 
region  des  Landes  offre  les  re*sultats  des  enqueues 
faites  par  M.  M.  sur  les  parlers  actuels  de  85 
communes  contigues  qui  se  groupent  autour  de 
Mont-de-Marsan.  Ces  re"sultats  sont  doubles,  car 
M.  M.  a  use"  de  1* "  observation  et  de  1' experi- 
mentation "  (p.  xx),  ou — plus  exactement — s'il 
a  "  experiment^  "  toujours  et  par  tout,  il  s'en  est 
rapporte"  tantot  au  seul  temoignage  de  son  oreille, 
tantot  au  temoignage  des  appareils  de  la  phone- 
tique instrumentale  ;  le  livre  se  distribue  par  suite 

p.  228,  1.  1  :  supplier  sans  doute  [<fe]  devant  Pautre  cap 
(cf.  11.  11,  14,  etc.);  p.  249,  1.  19 :  au  lieu  de  [xxi,  v<>, 
5  .  .  .],  L  [xxi,  v»,  10  .  .  .];  d,  1' Errata  :  au  lieu  de  p. 
120,  1.  20,  I.  1.  10. 

4 Pour  quelques  documents  (p.  ex.  Saint-Sever  1510,  p. 
127  sqq.)  il  n'y  a  qn'une  nume'rotation  de  [5]  en  [5]; 
pour  d'autres  (Saint-Sever,  1480,  p.  122  sqq. )  se  succ§- 
dent — sans  qu'on  en  voie  la  raison — la  nume'rotation  ligne 
par  ligne  et  la  nume'rotation  de  [5]  en  [5]. 

6  P.  xxx,  §63:  bend  (=  vendu)  est  invraisemblable 
par  sa  date  (1535)  et  son  isolement  (cf.  p.  xliv,  s.  r. 
bener);  p.  xli,  § 90:  il  cut  e"t6  bon  de  faire  remarquer  (cf. 
p.  xlvi,  s.  v.  deber)  que  les  trois  exemples  de  conditionnel 
en  -i,  -is  appartiennent  tons  a  des  documents  de  Bazas — 
qui  n'est  pas  dans  les  Landes. 


190 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


en  deux  parties  :  1°)  planches  de  phonftique  ;  2°) 
cartes  linguistiques. 

1°)  Planches  de  phonetique. — C'est  la  premiere 
fois— sauf  erreur — qu'on  essaie  d'appliquer  a  un 
groupe  de  parlers  populaires  la  mSthode  dite  ex- 
perimentale  :  a  cet  6gard,  M.  M.  a  fait  une  tenta- 
tive tres  meritoire.  II  s'est  servi  du  palais  arti- 
ficiel  et  a  recueilli  ''plus  de  2.500  empreintes 
dont  il  ne  reproduit  qu'  un  choix  ' '  (p.  xli  ;  il  y 
en  a  1054  ;  pourquoi  ce  choix?  qui  1'a  guide?); 
il  a  use  en  outre  de  1'inscripteur  de  la  parole  et 
nous  donne  153  traces  graphiques  de  mots. 

Les  sujets  qui  ont  bien  voulu  se  plier  aux  exi- 
gences de  F  experimentation  avec  le  palais  ardficiel 
sont  au  nombre  de  quatre,  tous  transplanted  a 
Mont-de-Marsan,  tous  jeunes,  sachant  le  franyais 
et  le  parlant  d' ordinaire  (pp.  389-390).  C'est 
dire  que,  necessairement,6  ces  empreintes  ne  nous 
renseigneut  que  de  fa9on  tres  incomplete  et  im- 
parfaite  sur  les  differents  systemes  phonetiques  de 
la  region  exploree.  II  est  douteux 7  que  le  palais 
artificiel  puisse  avoir  a  Fheure  actuelle  d'autre 
utilite  que  celle  d'amener  le  dialectologue  a  mieux 
analyser  sa  propre  prononciation,  de  F  aider  a 
faire  F  education  de  son  oreille.  Utiles  a  M.  M, 
au  moment  ou  il  se  preparait  a  entreprendre  son 
enqueue,*  ces  empreintes  auraient  pu,  ce  semble, 
Stre  laissees  de  cote  sans  grand  dommage. — Les 
trace's  graphiques  sont  plus  probants  et  plus  utiles  : 
ils  pourraient  Fetre  davantage,  si  M.  M.  avait 

8  Sans  parler  des  difficulty's  replies  qu'on  e"prouve  a  ar- 
ticuler  avec  un  palais  artificiel,  ni  de  1' inevitable  danger 
qu'il  y  a  a  isoler  les  articulations  qu'on  se  propose  d'etu- 
dier  en  faisant  prononcer  aux  sujets  des  mots  qui  n' ex- 
istent pas  dans  leur  langue  (v.  p.  53  raisin,  p.  55  roue  2, 
etc.). 

7M.  1'abbe"  Rousselot,  patoisant  d'origine,  ayant  a  sa 
disposition  des  sujets  particulierernent  bienveillants,  n'a 
pas  juge  possible  d' experimenter  avec  le  palais  artificiel 
ailleurs  que  sur  lui-m£me  (cf.  Les  modifications  phonetiques 
du  langage  .  .  .,  pp.  7,  27,  etc. ),  et  je  ne  vois  pas  que  M. 
M.  tire  nulle  part  un  re"el  parti  de  ses  empreintes. 

8  A  cet  dgard,  il  est  regrettable  que  M.  M.  n'ait  com- 
mence a  se  servir  du  palais  artificiel  et  de  1'inscripteur  de 
la  parole  qu'en  1904  et  1905  (pp.  389-391),  alors  qu'il 
avait  deja  fait  une  bonne  partie  de  ses  enqueues  sur  le  ter- 
rain (p.  393  sqq. ),  et  il  est  assez  typique  que  ce  soient  les 
notations  de  M.  Edmont — qui  n'a,  je  crois,  e"tudie"  ni  la 
phone"tique  expe"rimentale  ni  1'autre — qui  aient  re"vele  a 
M.  M.  1'existence  d'un  e  atone  nasal  tres  bref  a  la  finale 
de  certains  mots  ( p.  xxxii ). 


tente  d'employer  sur  place  Fappareil  portatif  con- 
struit  par  M.  Fabbe  Rousselot  au  lieu  de  s'en 
tenir  a  grouper  au  laboratoire  du  College  de 
France  des  sujets  rares  au  patois  mediocrement 
pur  (pp.  390-391). 

Cette  premiere  partie  permettra  neanmoins 
quelques  comparaisons  instructives,  en  particulier 
pour  ce  qui  est  de  la  duree  des  sons  (il  y  aurait 
eu  intere't,  en  ce  sens,  a  multiplier  les  traces  d'  un 
meme  mot). 

2°)  Cartes  linguistiques. — En  573  cartes,  clas- 
sees  par  ordre  alphabetique  des  mots  fra^ais,  sont 
consigned  les  resultats  de  F  exploration  faite,  de 
novembre  1903  a  mars  1907,  sur  le  terrain  meme. 
M.  M.  a  visite  chacune  des  85  communes  de  sa 
region  ;  dans  chaque  commune  il  a  fait  traduire 
par  un  ou  plusieurs  sujets  indigenes  un  question- 
naire comprenant  "800  articles,  mots  isoles  ou 
courtes  phrases"  (p.  xxi);  a  F  aide  des  reponses 
obtenues  et  notees  phonetiquement,  il  a  dresse  des 
cartes  schematiques 9  ou  sont  indiques  pour  chaque 
mot  les  differents  types  (et  les  variantes  princi- 
pales),  ces  types  etant  separes  par  des  lignes. 
Chaque  localite  est  represented  par  un  numero  ; 
la  repartition  des  types  saute  immediatement  aux 
yeux.  L'  Atlas  de  M.  M.  occupe  une  place  in- 
term6diaire  entre  les  Atlas  ou  les  cartes  ne  don- 
nent  que  les  limites  linguistiques  (Wenker,  Fi- 
scher, Bennike  et  Christensen,  etc.)  et  I' Atlas  lin- 
guistique  de  la  France  ou  les  cartes  dounent  sim- 
plement  les  materiaux  bruts  ;  il  est  cependant 
plus  proche  de  ce  dernier,  en  ce  sens  que  chacune 
des  cartes  n'y  est  jamais  consacree  qu'a  un  seul 
mot  (ou  a  une  expression). 

M.  M.,  n'£tant  "  nullement  un  patoisant  d'ori- 
gine "  (p.  xxvi),  a  commence  par  exercer  son 
oreille  et  par  consulter,  avant  de  dresser  son  ques- 
tionnaire et  de  se  mettre  en  campagne,  ce  qu'on 
pouvait  connaitre  du  landais  moderne  (p.  xviiisqq. , 
p.  xxi).  II  a  pris  soin  de  renseigner  scrupuleuse- 
ment  le  lecteur  sur  les  particularites  de  sa  pronon- 
ciation (p.  xxixsqq. ),  base  naturelle  de  ses  nota- 
tions phonetiques  ;  il  adit  en  outre  (pp.  393-397) 
a  quelle  date  et  par  quel  sujet 10  chaque  partie  du 

9  Le  precede  adopte"  dans  1'  Atlas  linguistiqite  de  la  France 
eut  e"t£  trop  couteux  et  ne  parait  pas  indispensable  pour 
une  region  restreinte. 

10  Le  lieu  d'origine  des  parents,  1'age,  la  profession,  les 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


191 


questionnaire  a  e*te  traduite  dans  chacune  des  loca- 
lites  explorees  :  et  c'est  une  chose  excellente  de 
tout  point  que  de  permettre  ainsi  a  chacun  de 
faire  la  critique  de  toutes  les  formes  notees  en  ces 
cartes. " 

II  y  a  pourtant  une  lacune  assez  grave,  a  savoir 
le  questionnaire  mSme.  Ce  questionnaire  com- 
prenait  800  articles  :  nous  n'avons  que  573  cartes. 
Pourquoi? — "  Pour  economiser  de  la  place  en  di- 
minuant  le  nombre  des  cartes,"  nous  dit  M.  M. 
(p.  li,  n.  1);  "  le  latin  filiam,  par  exeraple,  etant 
represente  partout  par  hilhe,  il  e"tait  superflu  d'en 
tracer  la  carte." — Assurement ;  mais  la  liste  de 
ces  formes  communes  a  tout  le  domaiue  ue  serait- 
elle  pas  indispensable  a  quiconque  voudrait  etudier 
motu  proprio  les  phenomenes  linguistiques  de  cette 
region  ?  N'est-il  pas  un  peu  g6nant  d'etre  oblige 
de  parcourir  les  notes  du  t.  in  de  M.  M.  et  d'at- 
tendre  •  les  Etudes  futures  pour  6tre  fixe  sur  les 
' '  types  regionaux  ' '  recueillis  par  M.  M.  pour  200 
mots  au  moins  ?  II  etait  tres  simple — et  un  ap- 
pendice  de  4  pages  y  aurait  suffi — de  donner  la 
liste  alphabetique  de  ces  types  (fille=  hilhe,  etc.). 

Cette  lacune  rend  malaise  de  porter  un  jugement 
quelconque  sur  ce  questionnaire.  M.  M.  a  pleine- 
ment  raison  de  plaider  en  faveur  du  questionnaire 
les  circonstances  attenuantes  (pp.  xxii-xxvi) :  on 
n'a  pas  encore  trouve,  malgre  les  inconv4nients 
reels  de  la  methode,12  d'autre  moyen  d'aboutir,  ou 
du  moins  d'aboutir  vite,  et,  somme  toute,  on  peut 
croire  que,  si  les  enqueues  sont  prudemment  con- 
duites,  les  patoisants  donnent  en  general  la  forme 
consideree  par  eux  comme  normale.n  Encore 

habitudes  linguistiques  de  chaque  sujet  sont  indique"s 
presque  toujours. 

"En  beaucoup  de  cas  (carte  12,  point  35  ;  carte  419, 
point  53  ;  etc. )  un  doublet  isoie  dans  une  aire  homogSne 
s'explique  par  les  antecedents  linguistiques  (le  plus  ordi- 
naireraent  ge"ne"alogiques)  du  sujet. 

!JCes  inconvCnients  sont  infiuiment  plus  graves  partout 
ou  les  patoisants  ne  distinguent  pas  nettement  leur  patois 
du  fran9ais,  partout  ou  ils  le  considSrent  comme  du 
"  franjais  corrompu."  Si,  d,  la  question  cheval,  on  re"- 
pond  dans  les  Landes  chibaw  au  lieu  de  cabat  phone"tique 
(p.  xlix  et  carte  88),  il  reste  du  moins  que  chibaw  n'est 
pas  cheval ;  mais  il  est  des  regions  (en  langue  d'oil)  ou  la 
forme  employee — aujourd'hui  encore — est  chevo  et  ou  les 
patoisants  s'obstineront  &  repondre  chevcd  :  qu'y  faire,  si 
1'on  ne  veut  pas  admettre  de  formes  pre"tendues  "extor- 
quees?" 

13  Ici  je  me  separe  si  peu  pres  complltement  de  M.  M. 


faut-il  autant  que  possible  eviter  de  leur  poser  des 
questions  qui  les  surprennent  ou  les  obligent  sim- 
plement  a  reflechir  :  le  questionnaire  doit  6tre 
compose  de  mots  courants  et  concrets,  de  phrases 
toutes  naturelles.  II  semble  bien  parfois — autant 
qu'on  en  peut  juger  par  un  questionnaire  en  partie 
inconnu  et  en  ignorant  la  mentalite  des  paysans 
landais14 — que  M.  M.  ait  Ste"  plus  preoccupe  a 
priori  de  P  interest  linguistique  des  materiaux  a 
venir  que  du  souci  de  concilier  cet  inter^t  arec  les 
realites  de  la  vie  paysanne.15 

M.  M.  n'apu — cela  se  con9oit  —  "faire  subir, 
dans  chaque  commune,  le  me'me  interrogatoire  a 
un  nombre  determine  de  sujets  representant  cha- 
cun une  generation  differente"  (p.  xxxvi);  il  lui 
a  fallu  se  contenter  en  quelques  points  d'un  seul 
sujet 1S  qui  a  traduit  le  questionnaire  en  entier  ;  le 
plus  souvent,  2,  3,  4  ...  sujets  en  ont  traduit  cha- 
cun une  partie. — II  en  re*sulte,  comme  le  dit  1'au- 
teur  lui-me'me  (p.  xxxvi),  qu'il  n'y  a  pas  de  con- 
cordance entre  1'  age  des  differentes  personnes  dont 
les  reponses  figurent  sur  une  seule  et  mdme  carte  ; 
il  en  resulte,  en  outre,  que  les  materiaux  juxta- 
poses sont  d'origine  trop  diverse,  trop  fragmentaire, 
tranchons  le  mot,  trop  individuelle. — M.  M.  semble 
avoir  repondu  par  avance  a  cette  objection  :  "la 

qui  regarde  comme  "  instinctives  "  (pp.  xliv-xlv)  les  re- 
ponses qu'il  a  obtenues ;  "j'ai  photographic  au  vol  du 
langage  en  mouvement"  (p.  xlvi)  meparait  tr£s  exage>e". 

14  Je  dois  dire  que  M.  Bourciez,  qui  connait  i  fond  les 
dialectes  gascons,  estime  le  questionnaire  de  M.  M.  "  fort 
bien  fait"  (Revue  critique,  1911,  p.  14). 

15  On  trouve  assez  peu   de  mots  spe"cialement  vivants 
dans  les  Landes:  ceux  qu'on  rencontre  (aiguille  depin, 
ajonc  epineux,  pigne,  resine,  etc.)    ont  fourni — naturelle- 
ment — les  cartes  les  plus  riches,  lexicologiquement  du 
moins  (c.  5,  8,  69,  85,  394,  395,  446,  447).— Mange-t-on 
vraiment  beaucoup  d'ails  (ou  d'aulx)  dans  les  Landes  (c. 
7)?    N'est-ce  pas  pour  etudier  la  dislocation  de  1'n  mouil- 
le"e  finale  que  des  questions  telles  que  celles-ci  ont  e"te* 
poshes  :  Ils  m&iient  le  cheval  au  bain  (c.  47 )  ou  11  mettra  de 
I'ctain  a  la  casserole  (c.  169)  [pourquoi  pas  plut&t :  Us  vont 
faire  baigner  le  cheval  ou  //  etamera  la  casserole?]?  Pourquoi 
L' dne  est  plus  petit  que  le  cheval  (c.  21  et  88),  Ils  le  charge- 
aient  d'insultes   (c.  79),  Cela  ne  me  concerns  pas  (c.  99  ; 
forme  "extorque"e"  en -de  nombreux  endroits,  remarque 
M.  M.  ;  le  contraire  serait  assez  surprenant),  etc.,  etc.? 

16  M.  M.  distingue — innovation   inte"ressante — entre  les 
sujets fondameniaux  qui  ont  traduit  le  questionnaire  d'une 
maniere  suivie  (en  totalite  ou  en  panic)  et  les  sujets  occa- 
sionnels  qui  n'ont  fourni  qu'un  nombre  limiu'  de  reponses 
eparses  (donnees  en  variantes)  (pp.  xxxvi-xxxvii);  ila 
indique  1'age  des  uns  comme  des  autres. 


192 


MOUERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


dialectologie  appliquee  aux  parlers  vivants  .  .  . 
doit  partir  des  faits  individuels  .  .  ."  (p.  xlv,  n. 
1)  et  1' expression  "patois  d'une  commune"  ne 
"repond  a  aucune  realite  precise"  (p.  xxxv).— 
Pourtant,  si  le  langage  n'  etait  qu'  iudividuel,  il 
resterait  interieur  et  nous  ne  parlerions  jamais  ; 
d'autre  part,  il  n'y  a  pas  de  science  du  particulier. 
Qu'on  le  veuille  ou  non,  il  est  indispensable  de 
considerer  des  types,  si  indispensable  qu'a  chaque 
page  et  presque  a  chaque  ligne  de  son  t.  in,  M. 
M.  Iui-m6me  regarde  im  temoignage  individuel 
comme  valable  pour  tout  le  "patois  d'une  com- 
mune"; il  ecrira,  p.  ex.  (in,  pp.  101-102): 
"Quant  au  [b]  de  [awbrichkoun]  "fragon"  & 
Saiiit-Pierre-46,  non  loin  de  \awristoun\  a  Leuy- 
26,  il  doit  6tre  etymologique,  si  on  rapproche  ce 
mot  de  la  forme  brisconis  signalee  dans  un  manu- 
scrit  du  xe  si^cle." — Transposons  cette  phrase  dans 
la  realite  (et,  je  le  repete,  on  ne  saurait  trop  louer 
M.  M.  de  permettre  a  ses  lecteurs  cette  transposi- 
tion), elle  devient  :  "Le  13  novembre  1903,  a 
Saint-Pierre-46,  M.  Mallet,  aubergiste,  age  de  42 
ans,  ne  de  parents  qui  n'etaient  ni  Tun  ni  1'autre 
de  Saint-Pierre,  a  repoudu  [awbrichkoun~\  a  la 
question  "fragon."  Si  Ton  rapproche  cette 
forme  de  [aivristowi]  a  Leuy-26  (a  35,  25,  47, 
48,  plus  voisins  de  46  que  le  point  26,  M.  M.  n'a 
obtenu  aucuue  reponse),  le  b  doit  etre  etymologique 
et  remonte  a  brisconis."  C'est  a  dire  que  d'un 
temoigiiage  iudividuel,  genealogiquement  suspect, 
geographiquement  isole,  M.  M.  conclut  a  1' exist- 
ence du  b  de  [awbrichlcowi]  transmis  depuis  le  xe 
siecle  sur  les  levres  de  tous  les  habitants  de  Saint- 
Pierre  (954) :  et  je  ne  veux  pas  dire  qu'il  ait  tort, 
mais  je  ne  suis  pas  tres  sur  qu'il  ait  raison. — Cette 
remarque  ne  signifie  pas  qu'il  sera  possible  a  per- 
sonne  d' o bserver  jamais  tous  les  parlers  individuels 
d'une  region  ;  mais,  puisque  la  question  de  1' ex- 
istence, de  la  formation  et  de  la  deformation  des 
types  linguistiques  n'est  encore  ni  resolue  ni  m£me 
vraiment  posee,  n'y  aurait-il  pas  avantage  a  pro- 
ceder,  dans  des  enqueues  aussi  vastes  que  celle  de 
M.  M.,  un  peu  autrement  qu'il  nel'a  fait?  Ainsi, 
M.  Edmont  a  partout  reussi  a  faire  traduire  en 
eutier  par  un  seul  sujet  un  questionnaire  dont 
1'etendue  etait  au  moins  double  de  celui  de  M.  M.  ; 
serait-il  sans  interest  et  sans  importance  de  choisir 
en  chaque  localite  un  seul  sujet  fondamental — dout 
on  ferait  conuaitre,  cela  va  sans  dire,  1'  habitus 


linguistique — ,  puis  de  faire  traduire  a  2,  3,  4  ... 
sujets  occasionnels  des  parties  plus  ou  moins  eten- 
dues  du  questionnaire?  L' unite  y  gagnerait,17  la 
comparaisou  et  la  critique  des  mate ri aux  seraient 
plus  aisees,  et  peut-e"tre  les  materiaux  eux-memes 
seraient-ils  plus  stirs.18 

Quoi  qu'il  en  soit,  les  repouses  obtenues  par  M. 
M.  s'ordonnent  en  aires  lexicologiques,  phoneti- 
ques  et  morphologiques  assez  coherentes19  pour 
qu'on  soit  assure  de  leur  reelle  valeur  objective  ; 
et  c'est  une  tres  forte  presomptiou  en  faveur  de  la 
' '  sincerite ' '  de  ces  reponses  que  de  voir  toujours 
situees  sur  la  limite  qui  separe  les  aires  de  deux 
formes  differentes  d'  un  me'me  mot  les  localites  ou 
M.  M.  a  recueilli  concurreminent  les  deux  formes. 
— L'auteur  n'a  fait  subir  a  ses  materiaux  aucuue 
retouche,  ce  qni  est  tout  naturel  ;  il  n'intervient 
que  pour  tracer  les  limites  des  aires.  Cependant, 
il  est  quelques  cas  ou,  avant  d'attribuer  un  point 
a  telle  ou  telle  aire,  une  comparaison  des  reponses 
obtenues  en  ce  point  a  des  questions  ' '  paralleles  ' ' 
eut  ete  salutaire.  Soit,  par  exemple,  la  carte  566 
(il  vouluf) :  M.  M.  a  recueilli  presque  partout 20  le 
parfait  synthetique  et  la  carte  se  divise  en  trois 
aires,  selon  que  la  forme  obteuue  se  termine  par 
une  voyelle,  par  un  -k  ou  par  un  -t.  Le  point  2 
appartient  a  1'aire  a  terminaisoii  -t  a  la  3e  pers. 
sing,  de  1'indicatif  parfait  ;  il  en  est  ainsi  dans  6 
cas  (cartes  45,  142,  174,  327,  478,  566);  dans  2 

17  L' unite  du  tableau  d'ensemble,  bien  entendu  ;  la  ques- 
tion de  I'mute"  dans  le  parler  de  chaque  localite  explored 
est  tout  autre  :  ni  les  mate'riaux  de  M.  M.  ni  la  fapon  nou 
spontane"e  dont  ils  ont  e"te  fouruis  a  l'enqu£teur  ne  per- 
mettent  de  1'effleurer. 

18EnefEet,  comme  1'indique  M.  M.  (p.  xxiii),  la  rapi- 
dit4  de  1'interrogatoire  rem^die  sensiblement  aux  inconve"- 
nients  du  questionnaire  ;  mais,  pour  qu'on  puisse  inter- 
roger  rapidement,  il  faut  un  sujet  qui  soit  bien  en  train  et 
completement  "  apprivoise" "  :  or  le  sujet  le  rnieux  dispose" 
ne  s'apprivoise  vraiment — c'est  du  moins  1'experience 
que  j'ai  cue  en  Vendee — qu'au  cours  de  1'interrogatoire  ; 
il  y  a  1&,  je  crois, — sans  parler  de  1'oreille  du  linguiste  qui 
doit  se  faire  une  nouvelle  Education  a  chaque  sujet  nou- 
veau — ,  une  raison  importante  de  ne  pas  trop  morceler  la 
traduction  du  questionnaire  en  recourant  a  des  sujets 
diffe"rents. 

19 II  est  clair  que  le  manque  de  concordance  entre  cer- 
taines  limites  phoneliques  (j-  et  y-,  r-  et  ar-,  f-  et  h-  a  1'ini- 
tiale,  etc.)  tient,  sans  doute  exclusivement,  a  1'histoire  et 
a  la  nature  differentes  d«  chaque  mot. 

20Sauf  aux  points  4  et  5,  ou  il  1'a  cependaut  obtenu 
pour  d'autres  verbes  (c.  45,  174,  etc.)- 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


193 


cas  (cartes  144  et  156),  an  contraire,  les  formes 
se  terminent  par  une  voyelle;  dans  1  cas  (c.  315) 
montra  est  remplace  au  point  2  par  une  periphrase 
comme  dans  toutes  les  locality's  de  1'aire  a  termi- 
naison  -t.  La  statistique  ll  est  done  en  faveur  de 
1'aire  en  -t :  des  lors,  pourquoi  avoir  range  lo  point 
2  dans  1'aire  a  terminaisou  vocalique  dans  les  12 
cas  ou  aucune  re"ponse  n'a  ete  donnee  (c.  10,  61, 
185,  186,  316,  348,  365,  379,  382,  420,  519, 
529)? 

II  faut  dire  en  terininant  que  la  region  explore'e 
par  M.  M.  est  fort  interessante  pour  le  nonibre  et 
1' importance  des  limites  linguistiques  qui  la  traver- 
sent. 

III.  Dans  son  troisieme  volume,  Fauteur 
6tudie,  en  s'appuyant  sur  les  documents  ancieris 
et  modernes  reunis  en  son  Recueil  et  son  Atlas, 
une  question  de  phonetique  landaise,  ledeveloppe- 
ment  des  phonemes  additionnels  (appeles  ge'ne'rale- 
meut  phenomenes  d' insertion,  d'epen  these,  de 
transition,  de  soutien,  etc.).  Combinant  les 
methodes  historique,  experimentale  et  geographi- 
que,"  M.  M.  a  ecrit  un  chapitre  de  phonetique 
des  plus  forts  et  des  plus  attrayants.  Apr£s  avoir 
ecarte  les  phenomeues  intellectuels  (  —  contamina- 
tions resultant  de  "fausses  perceptions"),  agglu- 
tinations d' articles,  agglutinations  diverses,13  croi- 
sements  provenant  d'une  analogic  de  forme,  ou  de 
sens,  ou  de  sens  et  de  forme,  etc.,  M.  M.  passe  aux 
phenomtines  proprement  phonetiques  qu'il  ramene 
a  un  principe  unique,  la  segmentation.  Le  mot  et 
la  theorie — comme  le  dit  Fauteur  (p.  49,  n.  2) — 
n'ont  rien  d'absolument  nouveau  :  ce  qui  est  neuf 
et  curieux,  c'est  la  generalisation  de  cette  theorie 
et  F  application  qui  en  est  faite  a  un  groupe  de 
parlers  ou  les  phonemes  additionnels  se  sont  de- 
veloppes  avec  une  frequence  et  une  variete  toutes 
particulieres. — Signalons  comme  interessant  spe- 

11 II  se  pourrait  que,  dans  une  locality  ou  le  parfait  syn- 
the'tique  est  en  voie  de  disparition,  les  deux  exemples  il 
finale  vocalique  (deux  verbes  reauliers)  n'aient  aucune 
autorite. 

"  "  Cartographique  "  serait  plus  juste,  car  "  gdographi- 
que"  s' applique — en  linguistique  comme  ailleurs — i  des 
recherches  d'un  autre  genre  (aux  Etudes  " ge'ologiques " 
de  M.  Gillie'ron,  p.  ex.). 

83  P.  21  :  1' explication  du  d  (dans  a-  d-  aisso,  a-d-  autre, 
etc. )  par  la  proposition  de — et  non  par  le  d  de  ad — a  e"te* 
de"ja  sugge're'e  par  M.  1'abbO  Rousselot  (Modifications  phone- 
tiquf*  .  .  .,  p.  184). 


cialement  le  gascon  Fetude  du  developpement  de 
a-  devant  r-  initial  et  Fhistoire  du  groupe  fr-  initial 
(pp.  117-127)  ;  d'autre  part,  les  pp.  55-75 
(developpement  de  w  et  de  y  entre  les  voyelles  en 
hiatus)  et  191-214  (diphtongaison  des  voyelles) 
sont  d'une  reelle  importance  pour  la  linguistique 
generale  ct  Fhistoire  du  provencal  litteraire.84 

Les  conclusions  generates  du  livre  (pp.  215— 
220)  ne  me  semblent  pas  tres  heureuses.  On  au- 
rait  pu  n^gliger  les  comparaisons  maritimes,  geo- 
logiques  ou  chimiques  qui  n'ont  jamais  rien  ex- 
plique  (p.  218);  je  crains  surtout  que  M.  M.  n'ait 
ete  trop  aisement  porte  a  batir  sur  le  plan  de  son 
travail  (phenomenes  iutellectuels,  phenomenes 
phonetiques)  une  theorie  linguistique  un  peu 
ample.  II  declare  que,  les  additions  phonetiques 
de  nature  intellectuelle  n'etant  regies  par  aucune 
loi,  et  les  additions  d'origine  phonetique  semblant 
parfois  echapper  aux  lois  (lorsqu'on  a  affaire  soit 
a  des  lois  anciennes  disparues,  soit  a  des  lois  nais- 
santes),  la  concordance  bien  reelle  des  limites  lin- 
guistiques s'expliquerait  par  la  combination  de 
Felement  intellectual  et  de  Fel^ment  physiologi- 
que  :  "au  moment  ou  Fensemble  des  sujets  par- 
lants  prend  conscience  des  innovations  provoquees 
par  le  jeu  des  organes,  la  prononciation  jusqu'alors 
indecise  tend  a  se  fixer  et  a  se  generalise  r.  II 
s'etablit  une  norme"  (pp.  219-220).— Avant 
d'adopter  cette  theorie,  il  faudra  se  rappeler  que 
M.  M.  n'a  discute  nulle  part  la  question  de  F  ex- 
istence des  normes  (ou  types)  linguistiques,  qu'il 
a  dil  constamment  normaliser  en  les  etendant  a 
des  ensembles  de  sujets  parlants  des  documents 
purement  individuels  (et  sans  doute  moins  incon- 
scients  qu'il  ne  le  suppose);  Fon  se  demandera 
alors  si  la  concordance  des  limites  linguistiques  ne 
pourrait  pas  s'expliquer  tout  aussi  bien  par  la 
combinaison  en  sens  inverse  de  Felement  intellec- 
tuel  (ou  conscient)  et  de  Felement  physiologique 
.  .  .  .  ou  de  quelque  autre  facon. 


A.  TERRACHER. 


The  Johns  Hopkins  University. 


24  N'  est-ce  pas  aller  un  peu  loin  pourtant  que  d'  expliquer, 
p.  ex.,  (p.  116)  la  particule  honorifique  en  par  un  "  de"ve- 
loppement  proth^tique  de  1'n"?  Si  les  formes  limousines 
nos  et  non  sont  discutables,  il  faudrait  en  tout  cas  ecarter 
les  exemples  de  ne  (cf.  Crescini,  Manualetlo  provenzalc*, 
p.  IGSsqq. ). 


194 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


ARTHUR  RANSOME  :  A  History  of  Story-  Telling. 
London  :  T.  C.  and  E.  C.  Jack  ;  New  York  : 
F.  A.  Stokes  &  Co.  8vo.,  pp.  312  and  Index. 

This  is  a  commendable  venture  into  a  field  still 
too  little  cultivated  in  English.  The  development 
of  college  courses  in  the  Novel  has  called  out  sev- 
eral good  text-books,  but  there  is  no  satisfactory 
work  in  English  as  yet  upon  the  history  of  prose 
fiction  for  the  general  reader.  Dunlop's  work, 
even  in  its  revised  form,  is  inadequate,  ill-arranged, 
and  very  dry.  Mr.  Ransome  does  not  put  forward 
his  book  as  a  history  of  fiction,  but  it  may  well 
help  make  a  market  for  a  more  comprehensive 
and  thorough  work.  It  conveys,  apparently,  his 
series  of  shilling  selections  from  The  World's  Story - 
Tellers,  published  by  the  Messrs.  Jack,  and  seeks 
merely  to  give  a  readable  sketch  of  some  of  the 
important  aspects  of  prose  fiction,  English  and 
French,  from  the  Renaissance  to  the  present  day. 
It  is  confessedly  fragmentary,  giving  little  atten- 
tion to  the  realistic  branch  of  the  Novel,  and  it  is 
more  than  whimsical  in  the  inclusion  of  the  Roman 
de  la  Rose  and  the  tales  of  Chaucer  among  its 
topics,  and  the  exclusion  of  Amadis  of  Gaul  and 
other  prose  romances  of  chivalry,  and  of  the  whole 
dynasty  of  seventeenth  century  French  Heroic 
Romances.  But  it  shows  a  sympathetic  though 
uneven  acquaintance  with  the  earlier  periods,  and 
an  intelligent  familiarity  with  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury Romanticists.  Part  I,  which  discusses  in 
chapters  of  about  a  dozen  pages  each  The  Roman 
de  la  Rose,  Chaucer  and  Boccaccio,  The  Rogue 
Novel,  The  Elizabethans,  The  Pastoral,  Cervantes, 
the  essay-fictions  of  the  Spectator,  and  the  English 
realists  of  the  eighteenth  century,  shows  deft  selec- 
tion of  matter  and  suggestive  presentation.  These 
sketchy  chapters  should  make  the  reader  curious 
to  know  more  of  the  fiction  of  the  early  Renais- 
sance, interesting,  in  spite  of  its  weakness  of  form, 
in  so  many  ways.  It  must  be  admitted  that  Mr. 
Ransome' s  statements  are  sometimes  inaccurate. 
Sidney's  Arcadia  is  represented  (p.  85)  as  lack- 
ing in  vigor  and  robustness.  Swinburne's  descrip- 
tion of  the  work  of  Mrs.  Aphra  Behn  as  ' '  welter- 
ing sewerage"  is  repeated  with  approval  (pp.  71 
and  139),  though  as  applied  to  her  novels  the 
phrase  is  quite  incorrect.  Fielding  and  Smollett 


are  bracketed  together,  casually,  with  strange  dis- 
regard of  perspective  (p.  162),  as  having  "  failed 
as  dramatists. ' '  The  estimates,  moreover,  of  sev- 
eral of  the  leading  figures  of  earlier  fiction,  Field- 
ing, for  example,  Defoe,  Le  Sage,  Cervantes,  and 
Sidney,  are  scarcely  adequate  ;  the  backgrounds 
are  good,  but  the  main  points  do  not  stand  out 
sufficiently.  Part  II,  which  deals  with  Scott  and 
a  few  minor  English  Romanticists,  with  tie  two 
Americans,  Hawthorne  and  Poe,  and  with  French 
writers  from  Chateaubriand — who  for  some  reason 
is  included — to  De  Maupassant,  is  much  better,  — 
more  correct  in  view  and  better  written.  Occa- 
sional inept  or  crudely  expressed  statements  like 
the  attribution  to  Hawthorne  of  ' '  provincial 
pedantry"  (p.  264),  or  the  assertion  (p.  188) 
that  "  Before  the  writing  of  the  Waverley 
Novels,  Romanticism  in  English  narrative  had 
shown  itself  but  a  stuttering  and  one-legged  abor- 
tion, remarkable  only  for  its  extravagance,"  are 
easily  outweighed  by  the  excellent  chapters  on 
Balzac,  Gautier,  Merimee,  and  the  note  on  De 
Maupassant.  In  these  chapters,  as,  indeed, 
throughout  the  book,  Mr.  Ransome  has  caught 
much  of  the  vivacity,  the  graphic  power,  of  the 
French  critics  of  fiction,  whom  he  seems  to  be 
imitating.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  has  not 
always  attained  the  French  discretion  of  phrase. 
The  numerous  portrait-sketches  by  J.  Gavin,  rein- 
forcing ingeniously  the  author's  estimates  of  his 
Story-Tellers,  add  much  to  the  interest  of  the 
book. 

JOHN  M.  CLAPP. 

Lake  Forest  College. 


ROMAN  WOERNER  :  Henrilc  Ibsen.  Zweiter  Band. 
Munchen,  1910.     8vo.,  v  +  384  pp. 

This  second  volume  of  Woerner's  Ibsen,  like 
the  first  which  appeared  in  1900,  happily 
combines  in  the  historical  method  of  literary 
criticism  with  the  purely  aesthetic.  After  ac- 
quainting us  with  the  necessary  facts  in  connec- 
tion with  the  inception  and  development  of  each 
drama,  the  mood  in  which  it  was  conceived — as 
far  as  such  a  mood  can  be  reconstructed  from 
letters,  speeches,  reminiscences,  and  other  sources, 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


195 


-  Woerner  interprets  in  searching  and  illu- 
minating fashion  the  artistic  value  and  intellec- 
tual import  of  each  work.  Nor  does  W.  stop 
there.  For  him  Ibsen  is  no  isolated  phenomenon, 
but  receives  form  and  light  and  shadow  by  being 
presented  in  company  with  poets  and  thinkers, 
continental  and  English,  antecedent  or  contem- 
porary, who  labored  or  are  still  laboring  to  hold 
the  mirror  up  to  life. 

The  Introduction  gives  a  bird's-eye  view  of 
the  development  of  the  dramatist  from  his 
early  ' '  Norwegian ' '  period  when  the  brood- 
ing eye  was  turned  within,  through  the  long 
activity  of  the  ' '  European  ' '  period  ' '  when  the 
searchlight  was  sent  forth  to  glide  over  society, 
spreading  both  light  and  terror ' '  (p.  4).  Most  sug- 
gestively W.  traces  the  gradual  growth  in  the 
nineteenth  century  of  the  ideal  of  "character- 
istic" or  realistic  drama  as  opposed  to  the  typical 
or  "  classic ' '  (pp.  5  ff. ),  an  ideal  which  had  found 
champions  even  among  the  young  Storm  and 
Stress  writers  of  the  outgoing  eighteenth  century, 
as  instanced  by  young  Goethe,  and  which,  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  was  passionately  and  impetu- 
ously upheld  by  Kleist.  The  latter,  one  hundred 
years  ago,  died  in  a  desperate  struggle  for  princi- 
ples which  his  generation  was  not  yet  ripe  enough 
to  perceive.  Grillparzer  (1791-1872),  less  ag- 
gressive, almost  bled  to  death  in  his  desperate 
struggle  to  affect  a  compromise  between  his  inner 
urge  toward  the  new  truth  and  the  force  of  the 
old  traditions.  The  indomitable  Hebbel  (died 
1863),  so  nearly  Ibsen's  kindred  in  spirit,  was 
tortured  by  the  conflict  between  the  new  ideal 
and  the  old  into  many  exaggerations  and  eccen- 
tricities. In  Ibsen,  however,  the  new  tenet  found 
a  young  genius  almost  unhampered  by  old  tradi- 
tions, and  hence  came  to  its  consummation  in  him. 
Woerner  might  here  have  adduced  the  Austrian 
poet  Anzengruber,  who  in  the  seventies  wrote 
dramas  strangely  like  Ibsen's  both  in  style  and 
content  (for  instance,  Das  vierte  Gebot}.  Very 
helpful  for  a  realization  of  Ibsen's  peculiar  genius 
is  the  comparison  which  W.  makes  (pp.  20  ff. )  of 
the  influence  upon  the  poet  by  his  sojourn  in  Italy 
(1864-68)  with  that  which  a  similar  sojourn 
had  made  upon  Goethe  nearly  one  hundred  years 
earlier.  For  both  it  meant  a  re-birth,  but  from 
diametrically  opposite  points  of  view  :  for  Goethe 


a  complete  revulsion  of  his  inmost  being  in  accord- 
ance with  the  classical  ideals  of  art ;  for  Ibsen  a 
casting  off  of  all  that  was  not  pre-eminently  idio- 
syncratic. Ibsen  built  up  in  1866  what  Goethe 
had  torn  down  in  1786 — characteristic  art  (p.  29). 

The  dramas,  as  in  vol.  I,  are  treated  in  chron- 
ological order,  except  that  The  League  of  Youth 
(finished  in  1869)  forms  the  beginning  of  this 
volume  as  logically  being  the  first  of  the  social 
dramas,  while  Emperor  and  Galilean  (finished 
1873)  was  treated  as  the  last  of  the  introspective 
dramas,  at  the  close  of  vol.  I.  W.'s  method  of 
making  each  chapter  an  essay  in  creative  criticism 
which  draws  the  essence  out  of  an  Ibsen  play  and 
presents  it  to  the  reader  in  original  and  trenchant 
fashion,  is  extremely  grateful  to  those  to  whom  a 
flash  of  illuminating  penetration  is  worth  pages  of 
ponderous  detail. 

Least  successful  appears  to  us  the  treatment  of 
the  last  four,  ' '  the  symbolistic, ' '  dramas,  for  which 
W.  has  no  affinity,  while  The  Lady  from  the  Sea 
also  seems  underrated.  Most  successful  and  at- 
tractive are  the  chapters  on  The  Doll's  House, 
Ghosts,  Hedda  Gabbler.  Here  W.  is  in  his  ele- 
ment, laying  bare  Ibsen's  inimitable  character- 
development,  down  to  the  most  delicate,  almost 
imperceptible  cells  of  consciousness.  In  Nora's 
case,  W.  makes  a  very  fine  distinction  between 
her  great  natural  and  unconscious  power  of  self- 
abnegation,  as  shown  in  her  sacrifice  for  Helmer, 
and  her  habitual  little  egoisms  from  the  conven- 
tional point  of  view.  Equally  stimulating  is  his 
tracing  of  Helene  Alviug's  slow  progress  from 
conventional  cowardice  to  complete  anarchy 
(p.  105),  and  the  almost  uncanny  vivisection  of 
that  ' '  corseted  Hjordis ' '  Hedda  Gabbler.  Most 
happy  also  is  the  contrast  between  the  moral 
ideal  expressed  in  Doll's  House  and  that  of  Gel- 
lert's  Das  Leben  der  schwedischen  Grafin  von  G., 
between  outward  fidelity  to  the  words  of  a  vow 
and  inward  fidelity  to  oneself — as  illustrating  nine- 
teenth century  morality  vs.  eighteenth  century 
ethics.  ' '  Ibsen  hat  auf  ethischem  Gebiete  die 
innere  Form  nachgewiesen,  wie  Goethe  auf  as- 
thetischem"  (p.  90). 

The  chapter  on  Ghosts  (pp.  91  ff. )  begins  most 
felicitously  with  a  reference  to  Hebbel' s  Vorwort 
zur  Maria  Magdalene,  where  as  early  as  1844  H. 
had  demanded  for  modern  life  as  expressed  by 


196 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


modern  art  not  so  much  new  institutions,  as  new 
foundations  for  the  old.  Ghosts  seems  like  the 
consummation  of  this  demand  ;  not  the  abolition 
of  marriage,  but  a  better  foundation  for  it,  an 
inner  not  an  outer  motive,  is  what  Ibsen  advo- 
cates. Nor  is  this  true  of  this  one  play  alone. 
The  Ibsen  drama  as  a  whole  represents,  as  W.  well 
puts  it,  "ein  iunerlich  notwendiges  Schicksal" 
quite  in  the  spirit  of  Hebbel  (p.  93).  Suggestive 
also  is  the  comparison  of  Ghosts  with  Oedipus 
(pp.  101  ff.),  both  tragedies  of  "belated  insight," 
with  many  wise  and  instructive  words  on  parallels 
and  contrasts  of  these  apparently  so  divergent 
dramas.  But  iii  the  discussion  of  Ghosts  we  miss 
a  reference  to  Anzengruber's  Das  vierte  Gebot  in 
which  (in  the  story  of  Hed wig  Hutterer)  marriage 
is  treated  from  the  same  point  of  view,  by  the  use 
of  the  same  material  as  in  the  Ibsen  play. 

In  Hedda  Gabbler  W.  sees  Ibsen's  criticism 
of  his  own  dearly-beloved  Hjordis  ideal,  a 
criticism  already  begun  in  Kosmersholm.  In 
contrast  with  those  other  two  painters  of  Uto- 
pias, Rousseau  and  Nietzsche,  Ibsen  was  con- 
strained to  turn  the  light  of  criticism  upon  his  own 
ideals  (pp.  235  ff. ).  This  gives  to  Hedda  Gabbler 
that  absolute  objectivity — "  uberfaustisch  "  W. 
calls  it — which  makes  it  enjoyable  only  to  those 
who  are  avid  for  the  delineation  of  life,  the  real 
hunters  after  truth  (p.  240). 

W.'s  comparative  method  of  treatment  yields 
fruit  in  such  illuminating  passages  as  that  on  pp. 
250  f.,  in  which  he  traces  the  gradual  develop- 
ment in  modern  literature  of  the  ideal  of  the 
comradeship  between  men  and  women  from  the 
onesided  emphasis  upon  the  sex-relation  which 
characterized  eighteenth  century  letters  :  Schil- 
ler's Thekla  vs.  Kleist's  Nathalie  and  Ibsen's 
Thea.  To  Ibsen's  almost  uncanny  penetration 
into  the  vagaries  and  finesses  of  woman's  psyche 
W.  does  full  justice,  often  adducing  most  helpful 
comparisons  with  Hebbel' s  women.  But  we  miss 
the  very  obvious  one  between  Aline  Solnesz 
and  Rhodope  (in  Hebbel' s  Gyges  und  sein 
Ring*)  who  are  so  evidently  kindred  of  type  and 
fate.  Interesting  is  W.'s  delineation  of  the 
fluctuations  in  Ibsen's  estimate  of  women,  as  il- 
lustrated by  the  characters  of  Ingeborg,  Nora, 
Rebecca,  Thea,  Irene  (pp.  338  ff. ).  In  the  sugges- 
tive discussion  of  the  hatred  which  the  last  named 


as  well  as  Rita  Allmers  bears  to  the  man's  work, 
it  would  have  been  helpful  to  speak  of  Bernard 
Shaw,  whose  Man  and  Superman  was  doubtless 
largely  influenced  by  When  We  Dead  Awaken. 
Useful  also  would  have  been  a  reference  to 
Maeterlinck's  Sister  Beatrice,  who  bears  much 
resemblance  to  Irene. 

Scattered  throughout  the  volume  are  many  ex- 
cellent passages  on  Ibsen's  dramatic  technique. 
Ibsen's  affinity  with  Lessing  in  finesse  of  crafts- 
manship (pp.  112  and  183),  which  at  times 
becomes  meticulous  as  contrasted  with  Shake- 
speare's bold  sweep  of  metaphor  (pp.  164  f.  ),is  ex- 
cellently demonstrated.  The  influence  of  Dumas 
and  the  other  French  dramatists  of  the  younger 
school  W.  considers  far  slighter  than  was  formerly 
believed  (pp.  68  f, ),  but  in  the  Volksfeind  he  sees  a 
tragi-comedy  of  the  Misanthrope  type  (p.  127).  In 
discussing  Ibsen's  innovations  in  the  dialogue,  W. 
makes  a  happy  reference  to  Lud wig's  Erbfonster 
(pp.  71  f. ).  Almost  every  chapter  contains  appre- 
ciative and  helpful  analyses  of  technical  economy  : 
so  especially  the  admirable  exposition  of  the 
Volksfeind  (pp.  135  f. ),  the  twofold  test  applied  to 
Helmer  in  Doll's  House  (pp.  81  f. ),  the  excellent 
uses  made  of  dramatic  material  (pp.  84,  1111, 
183 ff.,  etc.,  etc.). 

In  closing,  grateful  mention  must  be  made  of 
the  clear,  lucid  and  vivid  style  of  this  presenta- 
tion, a  style  which  stamps  W.  as  a  representative 
of  that  new  school  of  writers  who  are  making 
of  German  prose  a  most  supple  instrument  of 
expression. 

HENRIETTA  BECKER  VON  KLENZE. 
Providence,  B.  I. 


CORRESPONDENCE 

ON   THE   NAME   "  SEIGNIOR   PROPSERO." 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS: — In  the  November  (1910)  number  of 
Modern  Language  Notes  Mr.  Alfred  E.  Richards 
inquires  in  a  note  under  the  heading  "  Several 
Verbal  Queries/'  for  information  concerning  a 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


197 


certain  "Seignior  Propsero"  whose  name  ap- 
pears in  chap.  22  of  The  Second  Report  of 
Doctor  Fauslus  (1594). 

It  seems  that  this  name  does  not  refer  to  a 
famous  horse  of  the  time,  as  Mr.  Richards  con- 
jectures, but  to  a  foreign  horseman  (an  Italian, 
to  judge  by  the  name),  who  acquired  fame 
and  imitators  for  a  time  in  England,  on  account 
of  his  cruel  method  of  controlling  horses.  This 
control  he  gained  by  means  of  a  "cavezan"  or 
"  muzroule,"  a  nose-band  of  iron,  leather,  or 
wood,  fixed  to  the  nose. 

I  find  him  mentioned  in  this  connection  as 
early  as  1589  in  Lyly's  Martinist  pamphlet 
Pappe  with  an  hatchet:1  "But  if  like  a  restie 
lade  thou  wilt  take  the  bitt  in  thy  mouth,  and 
then  runne  ouer  hedge  and  ditch,  thou  shalt  be 
broke  as  Prosper  broke  his  horses,  with  a  muz- 
roule, portmouth,  and  a  martingall,  and  so  haue 
thy  head  runne  against  a  stone  wall."  2 

The  spelling  "  Seignior  Propsero  "  is  a  mis- 
print. In  Michael  Baret's  Hipponomie  or  the 
Vineyard  of  Horsemanship  (1618) 3  it  is  cor- 
rectly given  as  "  Signior  Prospero  " :  "  For  when 
Signior  Prospero,  first  came  into  England,  he 
flourished  in  fame  for  a  time,  (through  that 
affectionated  blindnes  we  are  vailed  withall,  in 
exalting  strangers  for  their  strange  fashions) 
and  so,  though  he  vsed  such  tormenting  Caue- 
zans  as  were  more  fit  for  a  massacring  butcher 
then  a  Horseman,  yet  for  all  that  well  was  he 
that  could  goe  neerest  him  in  such  Turkish 
tortures:  And  besides  those,  he  would  haue  a 
thicke  truncheon  to  beat  those  Cauezans  into 
his  nose,  the  further  to  torment  him,  as  if 
Art  had  consisted  in  cruell  torturing  poore 
horses."  * 

A  fuller  quotation  than  Mr.  Richard  gives 
fiom  The  Second  Report  of  Doctor  Faustus 
might  point  more  clearly  to  Signior  Prospero's 

bond's  Lyly,  Vol.  in,  p.  410,  1.  7. 

'Prosper  us  an  abbreviation  of  Prospero  occurs 
in  the  Tempest,  n,  2,  2 ;  m,  3,  99. 

8Bk.  n,  ch.  20  ('Of  the  Headstraine ' ) ,  p.  71. 
Quoted  in  Bond's  Lyly,  Vol.  in,  p.  586,  n. 

4  On  p.  lib  of  Blundevil's  Art  of  Riding  (1609) 
there  is  reference  to  the  "  musroll "  with  a  word  in 
its  defence.  (See  N.E.D.  under  "musroll").  An 
examination  of  this  book  might  reveal  further  refer- 
ence to  Signior  Prospero. 


perfect  control  of  his  horse.  The  unusual  sight 
of  "the  Elephant  flying  from  the  horse  and 
the  horse  following  the  Elephant "  suggests,  at 
any  rate,  the  peculiar  means  employed  by  Sig- 
nior Prospero  to  compel  his  horse  to  overcome  a 
natural  fear. 

M.  P.  TlLLEY. 
Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 


DATE  OF  HUGO'S  Expiation 
To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — All  the  editions  that  I  know  of  Hugo's 
Expiation,  in  IKS  Chdtiments  (except  the  new  Ol- 
lendorff-Imprimerie  Nationale  edition),1  give  the 
date  "1852"  at  the  end  of  the  poem.  The 
"Edition  originale,"  published  at  Brussels  in 
1853,  gives  "Jersey,  30  novembre,  1852";  the 
"  Edition  ne  varietur  "  gives  "Jersey,  25-30  uo- 
veinbre,  1852."  On  the  other  hand,  the  MS.  at 
the  Bibliotheque  Nationale — which  Mr.  B.  M. 
Woodbridge,  of  Harvard  University,  has  kindly 
examined  for  me — has  at  the  end  "  25  9re — 30 — 
Jersey  "  (no  year),  and  after  v.  282 — the  second 
part  of  Part  vi — the  date  "  14  novembre,  1847." 

Basing  their  belief  on  this  discrepancy  and  on 
certain  differences  in  the  handwriting  of  the  MS., 
P.  et  V,  Glachaut,  in  their  Papiers  d'autrefois,  p. 
70,  say  :  "  L'  Expiation  .  .  .  se  terminait .  .  .  apr£s 
le  vers  Et  ?  ocean  rendit  son  cercueil  a  la  France. 
—  II  est  clair  que  le  poete  n'avait  d'abord  pre"- 
tendu  que  rappeler,  en  guise  de  lecon  morale,  les 
desastres  de  Napoleon  ler,  depuis  1' expedition  de 
Russie.  La  peinture  indign4e  de  la  cour  de  Na- 
pole"on  III,  qui  occupe  les  divisions  vi  et  vn,  a 
e"t£  annexed  apres  coup — Les  trois  premieres 
strophes  de  la  division  v  semblent,  pareillement, 
poste*rieures  a  la  conception  initiale. ' ' 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  the  line  Et  I' ocean 
rendit  son  cercueil  a  la  France  would  make  an 
abrupt  and  unnatural  ending,  the  examination  of 
the  MS.  makes  the  theory  of  the  Glachants  scarcely 
tenable.  The  date  "  1847  "  —which  comes  at  the 
bottom  of  p.  158  of  the  MS. — and  the  last  nine 
stanzas  of  Part  v  are  written  with  the  darker  ink, 

1  At  the  end  of  the  poem  there  is  given  in  this  edition 
simply  the  date  "  25-30  novembre.  Jersey  "  ( No  year). 
Beginning  on  p.  497  is  a  two-page  note  entitled  "Les  dif- 
fe>ences  de  dates,"  attempting  to  justify  Hugo's  habit  of 
dating  his  poems,  in  the  printed  editions,  on  the  anniver- 
sary of  some  important  event ;  there  is  no  reference  to 
V  Expiation.  On  pp.  431-432  is  a  brief  note  on  this  poem, 
reading,  in  part:  "Ce  manuscrit  offre  plusieurs  types 
d' Venture. — La  cinquieme  division  est  aate"e  de  1847  ; 
V.  H.  a  ajoute1  a  Jersey  les  trois  premieres  strophes  et  les 
guillemets."  According  to  Mr.  Woodbridge,  who  ex- 
amined the  MS.  carefully  on  two  occasions,  there  are  only 
two, — not  "several" — handwritings:  the  2d  and  3d,  but 
not  the  1st,  stanzas  of  Part  v  are  written  in  the  margin. 


198 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


dried  with  powder,  and  in  the  large,  bold  hand- 
writing of  the  later  period  ;  all  the  rest  of  the 
poem  and  the  date  at  the  end  are  written  with  the 
paler  ink,  without  powder,  and  in  the  smaller 
handwriting  of  the  earlier  period. 

It  is  well  known  that  numerous  discrepancies 
exist  between  the  dates  in  Hugo's  MSS.  and  those 
in  the  printed  editions  of  his  works  ;  in  the  present 
instance,  where  the  earlier  date  is  in  the  later 
writing  and  the  later  date  in  the  earlier  writing, 
there  would  seem  to  be  obvious  falsification  of 
some  sort.  V.  322 — Empire  a  grand  spectacle — 
might  be  taken  to  indicate  that  the  poem  was 
wrftten  after  the  assumption  of  the  imperial  title 
by  Napoleon  III  on  December  2,  1852,  that  is, 
even  later  than  the  date  given  in  the  printed  edi- 
tion. I  shall  be  grateful  if  any  one  can  throw 
any  light  on  the  question  of  the  true  date  of  this 
poem. 

GEO.  N.  HENNING. 

George  Washington  University. 


"EASTWARD  HOE"  AND  bicched  bones. 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — I  should  like  to  correct  a  misinterpre- 
tation, as  I  think,  in  Professor  Carleton  F.  Brown's 
"An  additional  note  on  bicched  bones,"  Mod. 
Lang.  Notes,  xxm,  159-160. 

The  quotation  from  Marston's  play  obviously 
does  not  mean,  as  Professor  Brown  interprets,  by 
a  "figure,  though  not  altogether  clear,"  that  the 
old  usurer  is  to  be  transformed  into  ' '  a  dog' s  car- 
case" (note  the  plural  apostrophe  dogs'  in  the 
quotation),  whose  bones  and  skin  are  to  be  used 
for  making  dice  and  parchment.  The  passage 
contains  no  figure,  but  is  a  straightforward  state- 
ment of  fact,  and  means  exactly  what  it  says. 
Quicksilver  is  upbraiding  the  usurer,  Security, 
for  his  covetousness  and  brutality,  and  exclaims 
in  his  anger  :  "I  hope  to  live  to  see  dogs'  meat 
(i.  e.,  food)  made  of  the  old  usurer's  flesh  [his 
flesh  becoming  dogs'  food  is  no  doubt  a  reminis- 
cence of  Ahab],  dice  of  his  (the  usurer's)  bones, 
and  indentures  of  his  (the  usurer's,  not  the  dog's) 
skin. ' '  The  whole  question  as  to  whether  parch- 
ment was  ever  made  of  dog-skin  thus  evaporates 
entirely,  leaving  in  its  stead  a  vicious  and  most 
appropriate  thrust  at  Security,  for  the  words  of 
Quicksilver  that  follow:  "And  yet  his  skin  is 
too  thick  to  make  parchment,  'twould  make  good 
boots  for  a  peter-man  (fisherman)  to  catch  salmon 
in ' '  are  not  added,  as  Professor  Brown  interprets, 
because  "  Quicksilver  himself  was  aware  that  his 
figure  was  defective  at  this  point,"  but  "thick- 
skinned  "  is  here  used  of  the  usurer  in  the  figura- 


tive sense  of  "feelingless,"  "cruel,"  which  Se- 
curity is  shown  conspicuously  to  be.  He  is  too 
' '  thick-skinned ' '  to  permit  of  his  skin  being 
made  into  parchment.  That  this  is  the  meaning, 
the  last  words  of  the  speech,  which  immediately 
follow,  clearly  show  :  "Your  only  smooth  skin 
to  make  fine  vellum  is  your  Puritan's  skin  ;  they 
be  the  smoothest  and  slickest  knaves  in  a  coun- 
try. ' '  The  peculiar  aptness  of  associating  Secu- 
rity's  skin,  even  in  this  jesting  way,  with  inden- 
tures is  obvious.  He  has  been  bringing  people 
into  his  "parchment  toils" — to  use  his  own  ex- 
pression of  a  few  pages  back — all  his  days,  and 
it  would  be  only  natural  to  wish  to  see  the  tables 
turned  and  his  own  skin  used  to  serve  as  such  an 
indenture  (if  it  were  not  too  thick);  equally  ap- 
propriate is  the  thought  that  the  man  who  has 
been  making  a  business  of  robbing  men  as  a 
usurer  all  his  life  should,  even  after  death,  through 
having  his  bones  made  into  dice,  continue  to  be 
the  means  of  their  undoing.  This  interpretation 
makes  an  especially  appropriate,  as  well  as  a  fine 
and  powerful  passage  of  Quicksilver's  speech. — 
It  turns  out,  thus,  that  this  quotation  is  not  a 
proof  of  dogs'  bones  being  made  into  dice,  but  a 
hypothetical  —or  rather  optative — one  of  human 
bones  being  so  used,  as  referred  to  a  little  later  in 
Professor  Brown's  note  (p.  160). 


Brown  University. 


J.  B.  E.  JONAS. 


PARALLELS  BETWEEN  PEELE  AND  TENNYSON 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  among 
the  many  parallels  to  be  found  in  Tennyson's 
writings  and  those  of  earlier  authors,  there  is  at 
least  one  very  striking  instance  of  such  similarity 
between  Tennyson  and  Peele  ;  and  a  number  of 
others  which,  though  of  less  significance,  are 
worthy  of  passing  remark. 

The  most  noticeable  of  these  parallels  is  that 
of  (Enone's  Complaint  (in  The  Arraignment  of 
Paris')  and  the  swallow  song  (in  The  Princess) : 

"Thou  luckless  wretch  !  becomes  not  me  to  wear 
The  poplar  tree  for  triumph  of  my  love  : 
Then  as  my  joy,  my  pride  of  love  is  left, 
Be  thou  unclothed  of  thy  lovely  green." 

"  Why  lingereth  she  to  clothe  her  heart  with  love, 
Delaying  as  the  tender  ash  delays 
To  clothe  herself,  when  all  the  woods  are  green?" 

Of  the  less  striking  parallels,  i.  e.,  those  which 
deal  with  ideas  which  are  fairly  common  to  all 
poetry,  two  instances  of  similarity  come  readily  to 
mind.  The  first  of  these  is  that  of  Thestylis'  song 
(Arr.  of  Par.),  and  the  second  song  in  The  Mil- 
ler's Daughter  : 


June,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


199 


"  The  strange  affects  of  my  tormented  heart, 
Whom  cruel  love  hath  woeful  prisoner  caught." 

"  Love  that  hath  us  in  the  net." 

The  second  of  this  class  of  parallels  exists  in  a 
speech  by  David  (in  David  and  Bethsabe),  and 
the  well  known  song  in  Maud  : 

"  May  the  sweet  plain  that  bears  her  pleasant  weight 
Be  still  enamelled  with  discoloured  flowers." 

"  From  the  meadow  your  walks  have  left  so  sweet 

That  whenever  a  March-wind  sighs 
He  sets  the  jewel-print  of  your  feet 
In  violets  blue  as  your  eyes." 

When  we  remember  that  five  of  these  six  cita- 
tions are  taken  from  songs  ;  when  we  consider 
that  Tennyson,  almost  unparalleled  in  English 
literature  for  the  number  and  variety  of  his  songs, 
borrowed  abundantly  from  older  sources  for  the 
subject  matter  and  phraseology  employed  in  them 
(one  illustration  of  this,  which  has  or  has  not  been 
pointed  out  before,  is  the  first  song  in  The  Miller's 
Daughter,  a  mere  elaboration  of  three  sentiments 
expressed  in  an  ode  of  Anacreon) ;  when  we  con- 
sider the  technical  excellencies  of  both  Peele  and 
Tennyson,  and  the  bond  of  sympathy  which  might 
readily  have  existed  between  them,  these  external 
similarities  perhaps  attain  to  something  of  real 
significance. 

JOHN  ROBERT  MOORE. 

University  of  Missouri. 


'SHE   WAS  A   MAIDEN   ClTY.' 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — As  Professor  Livingston  suggests,  the 
allusion  to  Venice  as  '  a  maiden  City  '  is  so  fre- 
quently encountered  that  Wordsworth  (who  read 
Italian  with  ease)  might  have  found  it  in  any  one 
of  a  dozen  places  in  the  native  literature.  Among 
the  possible  sources  in  English,  Professor  Belden 
(Mod.  Lang.  Notes  26.  31)  cites  the  Familiar 
Letters  of  the  traveller,  James  Howell.  I  find  no 
reference  to  Howell  in  Lienemann  (Die  Belesen- 
heit  von  William  Wordsworth),  and  recall  none  to 
the  Familiar  Letters  from  my  own  study  of  Words- 
worthian  sources  in  the  literature  of  travel.  Though 
there  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  supposition  that 
the  poet  knew  this  book,  it  does  not  seem  to  be 
listed  in  the  Catalogue  of  his  library.  Of  course 
it  might  have  been  reserved  from  the  posthumous 
sale  ;  not  a  few  of  the  volumes  which  he  had  es- 
pecially valued  may  have  been  so  withheld. 

On  the  other  hand,  Ho  well's  Instructions  for 
Forreine  Travell  does  appear  in  the  Catalogue, 
and  since  it  is  precisely  the  kind  of  book  that 
would  interest  the  author  of  A  Guide  through  the 
District  of  the  Lakes,  we  have  some  right  to  assume 
that  he  read  it.  On  our  approach  to  Venice,  the 
Instructions  edify  us  with  the  inevitable  common- 


place. The  volume  in  Wordsworth's  library  is 
said  to  have  borne  the  date  of  1650.  I  quote 
from  Arber's  reprint  of  the  edition  of  1642 
(p.  42): 

1  From  Siena  he  may  pass  to  Milan,  and  so 
through  the  Republiques  territories  to  Venice 
where  he  shall  behold  a  thing  of  wonder,  an 
Impossibility  in  an  impossibility,  a  rich  magnifi- 
cent City  seated  in  the  very  jaws  of  Neptune, 
where  being  built  and  bred  a  Christian  from  her 
very  infancy  (a  Prerogative  she  justly  glorieth  of 
above  all  other  States)  she  hath  continued  a  Vir- 
gin ever  since,  nere  upon  twelve  long  ages,  under 
the  same  forme  and  face  of  Government,  without 
any  visible  change  or  symptome  of  decay,  or  the 
least  wrinkle  of  old  age,  though  her  too  nere 
neighbour,  the  Turk,  had  often  set  upon  her 
skirts,'  etc. 

Will  it  be  out  of  place  to  contrast  Wordsworth's 
employment  of  the  phrase  '  a  maiden  City '  with 
his  ordinary  use  of  adjectives  as  applied  to  cities  ? 
As  my  forthcoming  Concordance  will  show,  a  city 
to  him  is,  in  general,  '  great '  or  '  vast ' — terms 
whose  implication  may  be  gathered  from  certain 
other  epithets:  'huge,'  'enormous,'  'crowded,' 
'mean,'  'cruel,'  'doleful,'  'obstreperous,'  'dis- 
solute. ' 

I  suppose  that  the  notion  embodied  in  the 
expression  '  maiden  City '  ought  ultimately  to  be 
referred  to  a  Biblical  source,  directly  or  by  oppo- 
sition, as,  for  example,  in  the  earlier  chapters  of 
Jeremiah  and  the  customary  allusions  to  Babylon 
in  Isaiah  and  elsewhere  ;  thus,  Isaiah  47.  1  : 

Come  down,  and  sit  in  the  dust,  O  virgin 
daughter  of  Babylon,  sit  on  the  ground  :  there  is 
no  throne,  O  daughter  of  the  Chaldeans  :  for  thou 
shalt  no  more  be  called  tender  and  delicate. 


Cornell  University. 


LANE  COOPER. 


MILTON'S  CHINA 
To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS:— In  Paradise  Lost  11.  385-90,  Milton, 
in  describing  the  prospect  spread  by  Michael 
before  the  eyes  of  Adam,  says  : 

His  Eye  might  there  command  wherever  stood 

City  of  old  or  modern  Fame,  the  Seat 

Of  mightiest  Empire,  from  the  destind  Walls 

Of  Cambalu,  seat  of  Cathaian  Can 

And  Samarchand  by  Oxus,  Temirt  Throne, 

To  Paqiiin  of  Sinaean  Kings. 

Commentators  on  the  passage  do  not  consider 
Cathay  and  China  (Sinae),  and  Cambalu  and 
Peking  (Paquin)  identical,  though  such  is  the 
case  (Col.  Yule,  Cathay  and  the  Way  Thither, 
and  Marco  Polo).  Professor  Masson,  for  example, 
describes  Cathay  as  a  region  northwest  of  China. 


200 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  6. 


However  to  make  Cathay  a  province  of  Tartary 
is  a  needless  belittling  of  Milton's  picture,  because 
his  identification  of  China  and  Cathay  is  not  an 
inconsistency,  but  may  be  explained  by  a  fact 
interesting  for  the  history  of  geography.  For 
ages  China  was  known  by  two  names,  one  given 
by  those  who  approached  it  by  the  overland  route, 
the  other  by  those  who  went  thither  by  sea.  Not 
only  was  this  true  in  Milton's  time,  but  there  was 
still  debate  whether  or  not  China  and  Cathay  were 
the  same  (Purchas,  Pilgrims  in,  iv.  801).  The 
question  is  elsewhere  debated  in  the  Pilgrims,  with 
which  Milton  was  somewhat  familiar,  as  is  attested 
by  the  notes  to  his  Brief  History  of  Moscovia  and 
of  other  less  known  Countries  lying  Eastward  of 
Russia  as  far  as  Cathay.  This  same  work  gives 
evidence  that  he  had  studied  the  overland  route 
to  China  in  writings  where  it  appears  as  Cathay. 
Some  of  those  writings,  the  '  Russian  Relations  in 
Purchas,'  he  thought  excellent.  He  may  have 
debated  the  question,  and  decided  incorrectly. 
He  may  have  known  that  China  was  Cathay  and 
yet,  to  complete  his  roll  of  'cities  of  old  and  mod- 
ern Fame,'  have  deliberately  used  the  two  names 
to  aid  in  different  ways  in  producing  the  total 
effect,  for  'Cambalu,  seat  of  Cathaian  Can,'  sug- 
gests military  power,  and  '  Paquin  of  Sinaean 
Kings,'  more  peaceful  splendor. 


ALLAN  H.  GILBERT. 


Cornell  University. 


BRIEF  MENTION 

The  Evolution  of  Literature,  by  A.  S.  Macken- 
zie (New  York  :  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.),  is 
offered  as  a  much-needed  manual  of  Comparative 
Literature.  It  is  "  the  product  of  years  of  patient 
research,"  composed  in  humble  acknowledgment 
of  the  temerity  of  such  an  undertaking,  but  sus- 
tained by  a  high  seriousness  that  will  not  fail  to 
convince  the  reader  of  the  author's  right  to  pre- 
sent his  report  of  a  Captain  Anson's  voyage 
around  the  world  of  literature.  The  author  is 
philosophic,  sympathetic,  and  scientific.  He 
aims  not  to  make  all-comprehensive  knowledge 
easy  and  thus  encourage  superficial  omniscience 
or  charter  a  roving  commission  through  the  ages 
prematurely.  Educational  plans  are  rightly  de- 
manding the  comparative  study  of  literature. 
Philology  has  shown  the  value  of  the  method. 
But  the  application  of  the  method  to  literature 
begets  a  long  list  of  dangers.  The  author  of  this 
well-constructed  and  soundly  instructive  book  is 
aware  of  all  the  pitfalls,  and  he  has  set  down 
nothing  for  the  encouragement  of  the  cheap  '  get- 
wise-quick  '  aspirations  of  the  indolent  or  the  in- 
competent. The  titles  of  the  author's  chapters 
cannot  be  recited  here.  But  an  indication  of 


them  may  be  given  by  noticing  that  the  words 
primitive  and  barbaric,  autocratic  and  democratic 
are  the  leading  designations  of  man,  society,  and 
literature  as  here  considered  under  broad  anthro- 
pologic  theory.  The  necessity  of  compression  of 
matter  and  reduction  of  details  has  not  driven  the 
author  to  take  refuge  in  an  excess  of  generaliza- 
tion. Facts  are  in  the  main  allowed  to  suggest 
the  underlying  principle.  Occasionally  a  detail 
springs  into  unexpected  prominence,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, this  personal  judgment :  "  Among  living 
American  poets  the  highest  place  seems  to  belong 
to  Lloyd  Mifflin,  the  most  finished  sonneteer  ever 
born  out  of  Europe."  Mr.  Mifflin's  extraordi- 
nary output  of  sonnets  surely  deserves  wide  ac- 
knowledgment ;  it  confounds  the  nonsense  of  a 
judgment  cited  on  the  first  page  (cited  in  the 
blind  fashion,  ' '  a  well-known  critic, ' '  that  de- 
serves nothing  but  condemnation),  "that  a  half- 
dozen  sonnets  are  enough  for  any  one  to  write." 
An  extensive  bibliography  is  distributed  in  the 
footnotes. 

There  remains  no  period  in  the  Romance  liter- 
atures for  which  it  is  not  becoming  easy  to  secure 
an  extensive  selection  of  the  leading  works.  This 
is  in  no  small  degree  furthered  by  the  various  col- 
lections now  in  course  of  publication  with  the 
primary  aim  of  providing  at  modest  price  a  large 
number  of  reliable  texts.  The  JBibliotheca  ro- 
manica  (Strassburg  :  Heitz)  has  passed  its  124th 
volume,  and  is  now  being  followed  by  Les  classi- 
quesfrangais  du  moyen  age  (Paris  :  Champion), 
the  Cldsicos  castellanos  (Madrid  :  La  Lectura, 
Paris  :  Champion),  and  the  Serittori  d' Italia 
(Bari :  Laterza).  None  of  these  series  is  expen- 
sive ;  some  are  remarkably  inexpensive.  All 
should  be  welcomed  by  every  student  of  Romance 
life  and  thought,  and  they  can  not  fail  to  result  in 
wider  reading  and  better  first-hand  knowledge  of 
literature. 


ERRATA 

In  M.  L.  N.,  May,  1911,  the  following  correc- 
tions should  be  made  :  P.  150,  col.  1,  1.  22,  for 
fus  read  " feaus  or  faus."  P.  157,  col,  2,  1.  39, 
for  ' '  That  the  author  is  a  New  Mexican ' '  read 
' '  The  fact  that  the  author  has  lived  many  years 
in  New  Mexico."  P.  159,  col.  1,  add  the  follow- 
ing footnotes  : 

" 7  Letter  xxxvii,  vol.  in,  p.  97." 

"8Hecht,  Thomas  Percy  und  William  Shenstone,  Strass- 
burg, 1909,  p.  81." 

Page  152,  col.  2,  1.  36  ;  p.  153,  col.  1,  1.  47, 
for  Coleman  read  Colman. 

Page  153,  col.  1,  1.  12,  for  Diamond  read 
Dimond. 

Page  151,  col.  2,  1.  27,  for  65,000  read  6500. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES 


VOL.  XXVI. 


BALTIMOKE,   NOVEMBER,    1911. 


No.  7. 


PSEUDONYMS  OF  THE  NOBLES  OF  THE 

BROGLIO   IN   VENETIAN  POPULAR 

POETRY 

I  examine  here  a  literary  type  that  has  attracted 
the  attention  of  a  celebrated  investigator  of  Vene- 
tian life,  Senator  Pompeo  Molmenti.1  A  kin- 
dred form  was  studied  also  by  Moschetti,2  and  the 
philological  aspects  of  the  theme  have  interested 
another  master  of  Venetian  folk-lore,  Dr.  Cesare 
Musatti.3  The  documents  here  put  in  circulation 
notably  increase  the  list  of  epithets  of  the  Venetian 
nobles  which  Molmenti  derived  from  a  Marcian 
codex.  They  illuminate  the  literary  phases  of 
the  question  which  his  meagre  references  do  not 
define.  They  throw  light  on  the  method  of  inter- 
pretation which  must  be  followed  in  reading  these 
difficult  texts,  and  on  the  process  of  association 
and  contamination  by  which  these  nicknames  in 
part  originated  and  in  part  developed.  Behind 
them  too  one  discerns  in  outline  the  special  traits 
of  existence  in  Venice  which  give  form  to  much 
of  her  local  literature,  especially  to  that  prolific 
genre,  the  Venetian  serenade. 

Both  the  poems  which  follow  have  the  metre  of 
the  Venetian  musical  lyric,  and  the  second  is 
specifically  described  as  a  cantata  per  musica. 
Whether  they  were  sung  beneath  a  lady's  window 
is  a  matter  of  speculation.  The  humorous  word- 
play suggests  rather  the  plaudits  of  a  jocose  ban- 
quet or  an  tin- Arcadian  drawing-room,  but  the 
purity  of  tone  distinguishes  them  from  obscene 
bacchanal  revelry.  They  were,  perhaps  most 
probably,  sung  on  the  stage  of  a  Carnival  res- 
taurant, to  an  initiated  audience  able  to  appre- 
ciate the  puns,  and  where  the  entrancing  profusion 

1  La  storia  di  Venczia  nella  vita  privuta  dalle  origin  I  alia 
aiduta  ddla  Repubblica.  Bergamo,  Istituto  Italiano  di  Arti 
Grafiche,  1905.  Vol.  in,  p.  186,  in  the  chapter  :  La  vita 
delle  slrade  nelle  rarie  stagioni. 

*  /  biaticci  geogrujici  nel  dialetto  vencziano,  in  the  Novo 
Archivio  Vejteto,  1894,  pp.  157  iT. 

3  Molti  popoluri  reneziani,  in  Ateneo  Vcneto,  1904,  I,  1,  2. 


of  women  and  wine  might  induce  the  dreamy 
atmosphere  of  a  languid  licentiousness.  The 
scenario  suggested  was  one  familiar  to  all  the 
hearers  :  the  gondola  beneath  a  window  ;  the 
complacent  servant  and  the  discreet  gondolier, — 
Nane,  poppier  and  Santa,  cameriera.  These  fig- 
ures still  survive  from  the  shadows  of  the  buon 
tempo  antico.  So  for  Leonardo  Zustinian,  the 
servant  carried  news  of  the  lover's  arrival  to  the 
expectant  mistress,  and  in  the  latter' s  absence, 
stood  ready  to  receive  the  song  of  lament — or  even 
more  ;  while  the  boatman  listened  for  threatening 
sounds  or  watched  for  evidence  of  prying  eyes, 
along  the  fondamenta.  And  rarely  enough  did 
the  ingenious  poet  find  waiting  Contarin  porte  de 
ferro  or  Sior  Dona  dai  risi !  But  our  people  here 
at  any  rate  are  from  the  lower  walks  of  life.  It 
is  not  a  parsimonious  zudio  that  here  offers  a 
heart  untainted  with  gold.  Sonnets  and  canzoni 
came  cheap  in  Arcadian  days,  and  even  the  scul- 
lions loved  them.  So  dreams  of  an  inimortality 
of  Laura's  type  invaded  even  the  kitchen,  and 
humble  swains  were  required  to  ' '  learn  Platonic 
love,"  and  consecrate  it  forever  in  "ottave  e 
sonctti."  Zerbino  must  know  the  "stil  bizzaro," 
the  "frase  elletta,"  even  if  the  lady  has  never 
learned  the  noble  "  parlar  polio."  To  what  sac- 
rifices will  he  not  go  to  win  the  coveted  moment  ! 
He  will  incur  the  ridicule  of  the  workmen  in  his 
guild,  with  his  broad  garments  "  alia  parigina," 
with  the  horned  shoes,  perhaps,  the  powdered 
queue,  the  baggy  trousers,  that  sail  over  the 
Piazza  of  San  Marco  "like  Levantine  galleys, 
full  set  before  the  wind."  Or  he  will  wait  out- 
side the  theatre,  or  in  the  narrow  streets,  when 
the  lights  are  out,  and,  as  a  "  bravo,"  thrash  the 
tell-tale  lover  known  of  yore  who  has  been  too 
indiscreet.  AVith  him  at  least  her  "  concetto"  is 
assured  : — provided  meanwhile  she  cease  her  visits 
to  ihefcstino,  with  that  becchin  of  a  rival  !  He 
promises,  too,  the  delights  of  the  sea  and  shore. 
He  will  take  her  fishing,  —  in  the  jjiscinc  of  the 
lagoons,  the  weedy  shallows  where  the  water  is 


202 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


warm  and  the  tide  runs  slow.4  And  returning  in 
the  evening,  they  will  go  to  the  inns  of  the  Giu- 
decca,  and  the  feast  will  have  puine  for  ' '  anti- 
pasto"  and  rare  fruits  for  the  "popasto"  too, 
vermicelli  and  "  caoli  fieri."  And  he  will  let 
her  win  at  chess.  They  will  join  the  promenade, 
she  adorned  with  finery  that  he  has  bought,  and 
attended  by  a  servant,  till  her  glory  outshine  that 
of  Caterina  Corner  herself.  She  may  have  a 
house,  with  a  garden  beside  the  canal,  where, 
when  ' '  the  goose  leads  her  on  a  weary  walk, ' ' 
she  may  go  to  refresh  herself.5  And  to  show  her 
popularity,  no  longer  will  the  serenades  be  sung 
iu  secret,  but  he  will  bring  his  band,  with  pipe 
and  drum,  pifero,  trombiol  and  tiorba.  Then  if 
anyone  fails  to  give  her  the  title  of  "  great  lady  " 
there  will  be  a  great  ado.  Best  of  all,  he  will 
help  about  the  house.  No  longer  bags  and  boxes 
for  her.  He  will  go  to  church,  become  in  fact  a 
veritable  baccheton.  If  she  wish,  he  will  be  a 
hermit  or  a  "  philosopher. ' '  And  if  all  these  fine 
things  be  of  no  avail,  if  she  leave  him  to  despair,  • 
he  will  join  the  galleys  and  go  off  to  fight  the 
Turk. 

So  our  poems  develop  among  the  conditions  of 
Venetian  life  in  the  flower  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. 

Life  in  Venice  was  like  that  of  a  great  family, 
The  classes  of  society  were  clearly  defined,  so  there 
was  little  antagonism  between  them.  Everyone 
was  more  or  less  the  relative  of  everyone  else, 
especially  when  the  baptismal  rite,  with  all  its 
serious  import,  extended  the  relations  of  the  com- 
padratico.  Everyone  too  could  be  found  daily  in 
the  Piazza  promenades  or  in  the  Rialto  shops. 
His  personal  traits  were  known  to  all,  his  pecu- 
liarities, his  weaknesses.  Families  were  extremely 
large,  between  the  various  branches,  parallel  and 
direct.  So  it  became  almost  as  significant  to  de- 
fine a  person  by  his  recognized  idiosyncrasies  as 
by  the  well  worn  names  of  John  or  Peter  or  Paul. 
Did  a  man  have  puffy  cheeks?  He  became 

*In  the  less  frequented  parts  of  the  lagoons  the  currents 
were  and  still  are  so  controlled  as  to  form  natural  traps 
where  fish  are  caught  as  in  rivers.  In  these  places,  line 
fishing  was  always  successful  and  came  to  form  a  pecu- 
liarly Venetian  sport,  portrayed  notably  in  the  paintings 
of  Longhi. 

5  The  oca  in  Venetian  folk-lore  is  the  inspirer  of  ennui. 


(Morosini)  dalle  papozze,  and  his  son  "figlio  di 
quel  dalle  papozze."  Was  he  prematurely  bald  ? 
He  became  (Morosini)  pela.  Or  he  lived  alia 
Zuecca  ;  or  he  distinguished  himself  at  some  time 
by  a  pair  of  big  scarjjon.  His  wife  was  very 
dark, — moretta.  He  belonged  to  the  family  that 
produced  the  Queen  of  Cyprus, —  Corner  della 
regina  ;  his  garden  was  especially  fine, — del  zar- 
din  ;  his  temperament  was  moody, — filosofo  ;  he 
returned  with  a  nugget  of  gold, — toco  d'oro  ;  he 
had  a  prominent  jaw,  and  wore  short  hair,  and 
had  sunken  eyes, — scimiotto  ;  he  wore  high  heels 
or  strutted  like  a  king-pheasant,  — taeeo  ;  or  his 
palace  had  strong  gates, — porte  de  ferro.  A 
striking  event,  of  course,  at  times  undiscoverable 
to  us,  in  the  written  annals  of  the  past,  was  suffi- 
cient to  signalize  a  man  to  his  contemporaries, 
and  make  the  memory  of  that  event  the  most 
intelligible  means  of  identification.15  Nor  was  this 
necessarily  a  disrespectful  name.  Surely  the 
Bragadin  could  rejoice  in  the  glory  of  their  epi- 
thet, the  scortegai !  Naturally  the  process  here 
described  is  the  same  which  ultimately  explains 
any  family  name.  The  special  interest  of  these 
poems  is  in  showing  the  extent  to  which  such 
epithets  in  Venice  had  become  conventionalized, 
and  to  see  the  jovial  use  made  of  them  by  a 
"  concetti stic  "  society. 

For  the  Italian  of  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries  worshipped  the  concetto  ;  and 
that  is  characteristic  not  only  of  the  literary  cir- 
cles, but  of  the  populace  as  well.  It  is  difficult 
for  us  to  see  the  humor  in  such  far-fetched  and 
arbitrary  distortion  of  words  for  the  sake  of  a 
joke,  that  have  in  many  cases  become  an  inheri- 
tance of  the  Venetian  language.  Such  puns  as 
Mazorbo  and  mezz*  orbo  have  with  us  gone  out  of 
style.  But  under  the  Republic  of  Venice  these 
witticisms  were  quite  the  thing,  and  Pasquino's 
offspring,  the  Gobbo  di  Rialto,  would  have  felt 
lost  without  them.  He  loved  especially  to  play 
on  the  names  of  his  governors  :  in  Venice  there 
are,  he  says,  "  Cornari-assai,  Boni-pochi,  Zusti- 
un  solo."  And  so  the  author  of  the  poems  before 
us  plays  on  the  respectable  name  of  Alexander 
VII  :  Ottobon  becomes  for  him  the  Zotto  bon  : 

6  Casanova,  Memoires,  ir,  5,  shows  us  such  a  process  in 
operation  :  Antonio  Dolfin,  through  the  elegance  of  his 
dress,  was  acquiring  the  epithet  of  Bucintoro. 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


203 


Marcello  becomes  a  macello  or  a  martello.  There 
is  a  malicious  twinge  in  Mocenigo,  where  we  have 
the  distant  feeling  of  mocino.  Morosini  suggests 
the  delicate  moroso.  The  pathway  of  a  Corner 
school-boy  must  have  been  spotted  with  gore.  We 
may  observe  also  that  this  process  of  far-fetched 
association  affects  not  only  the  names,  but  at  times 
the  epithets  themselves.  Stella  has  become  stella 
fissa,  and  gallo  (Morosini)  has  become  galeno. 
If  one  Priuli  is  the  calderiola,  surely  his  cousin  or 
his  brother  must  be  the  pignatin.  And  the  possi- 
bilities are  exploited  to  the  limit :  Priuli  dai  rin 
is  used  now  for  '  laughter '  and  now  for  '  rice. ' 

These  remarks,  however,  are  still  insufficient  to 
make  easy  the  interpretation  of  the  poems  as  a 
contemporary  would  have  understood  them.  For 
it  will  be  observed  that  in  the  majority  of  cases 
the  proper  names  do  not  fit  into  any  conceivable 
relation  to  the  sense,  itself  complete,  usually,  with 
the  simple  epithet.  And  where,  beyond  the  obvious 
puns  recorded  above,  these  names  yield  up  some 
secret  association  with  a  popular  word,  the  asso- 
ciation does  not  seem  to  harmonize  with  the  nec- 
essary meaning.  That,  however,  they  form  an 
integral  part  of  the  phrase  is  proved  by  their  in- 
clusion in  the  metre  and  rhyme.  We  believe,  in 
fact,  that  these  names  are  purely  extraneous  to 
the  sense  in  many  cases  ;  nor  is  this  extreme 
artificiality  surprising,  inasmuch  as  it  would  have 
what  one  might  call  its  esthetic  justification.  For 
the  proper  name  calls  up  a  picture,  living  and 
moving  before  the  eyes  of  the  initiated  contem- 
porary reader  ;  and  this  picture  serves  to  specify 
the  connotation  that  the  epithet  is  to  give  to  the 
phrase.  The  lover  was  not  merely  a  "pazze- 
rello,"  but  a  genial  lunatic  of  the  Grimani  type  ; 
the  door  that  is  slammed  in  the  lover's  face  is  no 
ordinary  door,  but  to  his  disappointed  eyes  it 
takes  on  the  insuperable  magnitude  of  the  gates  of 
the  Contarini  palace.  This,  of  course,  is  the  case 
when  the  epithet  and  the  name  is  skillfully  em- 
ployed. But  we  must  confess  after  all  that  a 
rhymester  who  devotes  himself  extensively  to  this 
kind  of  humor  is  capable  of  all  the  varieties  of 
nonsense  and  no  sense  hitherto  recorded. 

We  are  dealing  here  in  short  with  a  literary 
type  of  the  most  ephemeral  kind,  reflecting  a 
psychological  moment  which  no  reconstruction, 
however  minute,  could  resurrect  in  its  entirety. 


Its  place  in  the  history  of  manners  is  with  the 
local  squibs  of  political  campaigns,  with  the 
satires  of  comic  journals.  It  can  assume  a  last- 
ing importance  only  when  it  deals  with  imposing 
characters,  as  here.  For  documents  such  as  these 
must  be  consulted  in  writing  the  histories  of  the 
patrician  families  of  the  Venetian  Republic. 

The  first  of  the  poems  here  reproduced  enjoyed 
some  diffusion  :  I  have  noted  copies  in  the  Correr 
codice  (Venice)  1083,  pp.  76-7  ;  1085,  pp.  ISO- 
GO  ;  1193,  91b-4a  ;  finally  in  the  Bertoliana  of 
Vicenza,  cod.  6,  2,  25.  From  this  I  derive  the 
text  here  published.  We  must  not  forget,  how- 
ever, a  complete  rifacimento  of  the  same  poem  in 
different  metre  in  codex  2,  10,  18  of  the  Berto- 
liana, which  begins  : 

Catte  zD,  che  mi  vengo  osservando. 

In  all  cases  save  the  last,  it  is  accompanied  by  a 
response,  wherein  the  lady  slightingly  pronounces 
her  indifference  to  the  rosy  promises  of  her  ad- 
mirer. This  poem  begins  : 

Sta  mattina  conzandome  la  testa. 

For  this  let  us  note  merely  the  epithets  not  con- 
tained in  our  other  verses  or  in  the  collections  of 
Molmenti  : 

Mocenigo — forfetta  ;  Lombardo — strolego  ;  Querini — 
testolina  ;  Dolfin — piccoli ;  Mocenigo — basso  ;  Badoer — 
buffon T ;  Valier — Arlecchin  ;  Dona — Scaramuzzo  ;  Cre- 
monin — Burichinella  ;  Calbo — boccal ;  Rioni — patron  ; 
Contarin — brazzo  de  ferro ;  Badoer — puina  ;  Dona — tore- 
selle ;  Pesaro — verin  delle  torre  ;  Mocenigo — uuinon  ; 
Gradenigo— dalle  piere  ;  Soranzo — panada  ;  Sagredo — 
panimbruo8;  Giustiuian—  cersato  ;  Vendramin— Don 
Gille  (the  Venetian  Don  Giovanni);  Bembo — Medico 
Volante  ;  Loredan — Fianimia  ;  Badoer — buovolo  ;  Moro- 
sini— nervetto  ;  Puzini — bocchea  ;  Barbaro — culo  ;  Zen 
— mona  ;  Contarini — Seneca  ;  Molin — burchio  ;  Priuli — 
coccalon  ;  Contarini — maccliia  ;  Molin — zombria  ;  Braga- 

7  There  is  a  passage  in   the  poems  of  Gian  Francesco 
Busenello  on  the  Carnival  which  represents  himself  anil 
Giacomo  Badoer  acting  in  Piazza  plays  (see  Xepurfenio 
guei  chiassi  e  quei  morbini,  for  instance,  in  cod.  Marciano, 
7015,  p.  355).     Probably,  however,  the  epithet  and  the 
three   following  simply  identify  their  victims  with   the 
comedy  type  as  a  judgment  of  character. 

8  Panada   and  panimbruo  connote  vulgarity  of  taste. 
Busenello  has  drawn  for  us   the   picture  of  a   wife  who 
justifies  the  irregularities  of  her  conduct  at  the  Sensa  on 
account  of  her  husband's  fondness   for  these  articles  of 
food. 


204 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


din — barchetta  ;  Badoer— musico  ;  Pavagnin — mostro  ; 
Piva— scarpioni ;  Bernardo— occhiali  ( Molraenti  gives 
occkialon);  Michiel— scalferotto  ;  Malipiero— dente  ;  Ve- 
nier— brochetto  ;  Nani— pacienza  ;  Contarini— strazza  ; 
Balbi— scatola  ;  Morosin — caldiera  (we  have  catderiola) ; 
Molini — dall'acque  ;  Dolfin— muso  de  porco. 

These  epithets  are  here  given  in  order  to  point 
out  the  categories  into  which  they  fall  consciously 
in  the  author's  mind.  For  precisely  in  these  cate- 
gories the  series  of  epithets  expands  :  the  moment 
we  have  a  Bembo  identified  as  the  Medico  Volante, 
some  one  discovers  other  comedy  types  in  other 
nobles  ;  so  we  come  to  have  a  Don  Giovanni,  a 
Fiammetta,  an  Arlecchin  and  so  on  ;  then  come 
the  fruits,  the  articles  of  food,  the  utensils  of  the 
kitchen,  etc. 

In  the  Bertoliana  codex,  our  first  poem  has  a 
prolix  title,  of  course  by  some  copyist  :  Lettera  di 
un  amante  ad  una  sua  arnica,  che  nel  descriverli  le 
sue  pene  amorose  li  nomina  li  sopranomi  de  Nobili 
Veneti:  con  la  risposta  allo  stesso  dell' arnica;  ed 
una  cantata  per  musica  dello  stesso  amante  alia  sua 
arnica  con  li  sudetti  sopranomi ;  e  varie  stanze  del 
medesimo  amanie  pure  con  li  sopranomi  predetti; 
II  tutto  in  lingua  naturale  veneziana,  composti 
dall'Illmo  Sig.  Gianfrancesco  Businello,  Segretario 
deW  Eccmo  Senato  Veneto.  Preceded  by  a  Cata- 
log'o  per  ordine  d'alfabetto  di  tutti  i  sopranomi  de 
Nobili  Veneziani  che  si  contengono  in  tutte  le  pre- 
senti  composizioni.  Codex  Correr  1193  also  attrib- 
utes the  poem  to  Busenello,  but  a  later  hand  has 
cancelled  his  name.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  these 
manuscripts  are  all  of  miscellany,  and  date  from 
the  end  of  the  Seicento,  while  Busenello  died  in 
1659.  The  confusion  which  reigns  in  the  attri- 
butions made  by  such  manuscripts  strips  them  of 
all  authority,  unless  there  be  corroboratory  evi- 
dence. And  a  study  of  this  extensive  bibliograph- 
ical question  is  lacking.9  We  may  note,  however, 

9  To  this  task  I  shall  address  myself  in  a  forthcoming 
study  :  La  poesia  in  duihtto  reneziano  nel  secolo  XVII. 
E.  Filippini  has  approached  the  difficulty  in  Un  ignnlo 
codice  miscellanea  contenente  poesic  di  Bartolommeo  Dotli, 
Ras:;egna  bibliograjica,  xiv,  326-39  ;  and  again  on  Dotti 
in  the  last  number  of  the  Rivista  di  biblioteche  ed  archivi 
(1910).  But  it  is  not  a  question  of  considering  one  or 
two  MSS,  Where  Mr.  Filippini  leaves  his  Dotti  prints 
he  falls  into  necessary  speculation  and  error.  For  in- 
stance, the  poern  Compare  passa  el  tempo  e  sc  vien  vecchi  is 
not  anonymous,  but  belongs  to  Busenello  with  the  title 
El  yiudizio  universal.  The  satire  Sopra  gli  usi  piil  detesta- 


that  the  biographical  data  concerning  Busenello 
given  in  the  Bertoliana  title  is  entirely  erroneous. 
His  authorship  is  nevertheless  suggested  by  the 
acute  satire  of  costume  and  the  keen  sense  of 
Venetian  life  that  pervades  the  poem.  And 
Catte  or  Ninetta  is  the  name  of  several  of  the 
Lauras  of  his  vernacular  poetry. 

These  observations  as  to  authorship  apply  as 
well  to  the  second  poem,  which  likewise  appears 
in  the  same  codex  of  the  Bertoliana,  6,  2,  25. 
Here  we  have  a  Nina,  likewise  a  familiar  name 
in  the  poems  of  Busenello.  Another  vivacious 
Venetian  satirist  may  likewise  have  a  claim  upon 
all  these  poems,  that  Alvise  Priuli,  who  engaged 
in  a  fierce  ecclesiastical  polemic  in  the  second  half 
of  the  Seicento.  This  Priuli  has  verses  in  the 
style  of  those  here  given  in  Codex  Bertoliana,  2, 
10,  18.  They  deal  with  the  nobles  of  Padova. 
However,  the  poems  contain  little  of  the  personal 
note,  and  the  question  of  authorship  is  of  slight 
importance.  There  are  plenty  of  anonymous  ex- 
amples, as  for  instance  in  Codex  Correr  1083, 
pp.  429-34. 

In  the  text,  otherwise  treated  diplomatically, 
except  that  accents  on  unstressed  vowels  are 
omitted,  epithets  noted  by  Molmenti  are  put  in 
italics,  new  examples  in  capitals. 

I. 

SCRITTO   SOPRO    LI    SORANOMI  DELLE  CASE 
DEL  BROGIO. 

LETTERA  DEL  ZOTTO  BON  A  CATTE  SUA  DAMA 
DEL  BUSENELLO. 

Catte,  zh  che  m'accorzo 
Che  no  t'intendi  el  mio  parlar  polio, 
Quando  te  digo  in  versi 
Co  lengua  fiorentina  el  fattomio, 
Te  vorria  parlar  schietto, 
Come  te  sol  parlar  mattina  e  sera 
Nane  poppier,  e  Santa  cameriera. 
Ma  per  tegnir  coverti  i  fatti  nostri. 
Servir  dei  soranomi  mi  me  vogio 
10  Delle  casade  che  spassiza  el  Brogio. 

*** 
Catte,  quando  te  vedo 

Morosin  sguardelin  in  su  le  galte 

E  luser  come  stelle 

In  tel  to  viso  Morosin  bei  occhi ; 

bili  de  nostri  tempi  belongs  not  to  Dotti  but  to  the  Padre 
Cacia,  a  satirist  of  Venice  of  the  middle  Seicento. 

12-14 :  suppress   in   translation  Morosini,  but  connote 
moroso. 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


205 


Quando  ti  averzi  i  lavri — M 'accorzo  che  ti  tien 

El  Mocenigo  dalle  perle  in  bocca 

E  che  sul  to  bel  sen 

Ti  porti  come  in  le  to  man  intattc 

El  CAPELLO  DAL  PONTE  DELLA  LATTE. 

20  Te  zuro  che  Cupido  to  destina 

Drento  el  raio  cor  Corner  delta  regina. 

Me  promctteva  amor 

Farme  con  ti  CORNER  DEL  PARADJSO, 

Finohe  sto  traditor 

Con  cl  Grimani  spago  a  cento  doppie 

M'a  ligi  cos!  stretto — Che  no  posso  scampar. 

E  po,  montil  sul  PESARO  DEL  CARRO, 

Co  i  Contarini  roncinetti  sot  to, 

Cargo  d'araor  e  de  superbia  sgionfo, 

Delia  mia  libertil  fatto  a  el  trionfo, 
30  O  Dio,  che  gran  brusor  —Per  ti  Catte  me  sento  ! 

E  a  destuar  sto  fuogo — So  che  no  saria  bon 

El  PJSANI  GARZON 

E  ti  gh&  da  veder  per  el  to  amor 

IN  DONA  DELLE  CENERE  el  mio  CllOr. 

Mo,  perch e  mai  no  pustu — Volerme  un  po  de  ben 
Col  NAVACUER  DELLA  piErl  nel  sen? 
E  no  sera  pro  mostrarte — El  Marcdlo  dei  cani, 
E  el  BARBARIQO  CERBERO  ai  miei  danni? 
Sd  che  ti  xe  Corner  dalla  Ca  Grunda, 
40  Che  ti  ti  a  in  casa  el  CONTARIN  DAI  SCRIQNI, 
E  drento,  el  Giusiinian  buelle  d'oro  ; 
E  mi  son  panno  basso — PoVeretto  e  mendico, 
NS  tegno  altra  ricchezza,  altro  tesoro, 
Che  la  raia  fedelta, 
Che  xe,  piti  d'un  Soranzo,  tocco  d'oro. 

15-16:  read  only:  "  ti  tien  le  perle  in  bocca." 
— 18-19  :  suppress  Capello  da.  El  ponle  delta  latte : 
'milk  market,'  i.  e..  she  has  the  milk  market  in 
her  hands  and  breast,  they  are  white  a*  milk.  Locutions 
of  this  type  are  numberless  in  the  Venetian  language  of 
the  Seicento :  Star  al  ponte  dei  Assassini,  "be  mal- 
treated ";  "  vogar  inRioHfenuo",  to  be  out  of  money  ;  far 
da  Canal  Grando,  ' '  to  show  off  " ;  slar  al  malcanion  :  "be 
in  trouble";  just  as  in  our  poems,  we  find  these  locutions 
becoming  as  it  were  parts  of  speech  :  Ponte  della  Paglia  : 
'  bed ' ;  Rio  del  Morti :  'death  ' ;  Ponle  del'  Aseo  :  "  vine- 
gar," hence  "  cold  reception,"  etc.  This  question  we 
shall  treat  fully  in  a  forthcoming  study  on  the  dialect  of 
the  Soi cento.  Note,  however,  that  from  being  the  moor- 
ing-places  of  market  boats  from  the  mainland,  the  bridges 
come  to  mean  '  markets.'  — 21  :  read  only  regina  ;  in  23, 
however,  Corner  may  mean  ' '  doge,"  i.  e  ,  "  king  of  par- 
adise," from  the  shape  of  the  ducal  hat.  Pasquino, 
of  course,  observed  that  Venice  was  never  without 
a  "duca  cornuto."  —  32  :  It  is  obvious  that  the  Pisani 
would  be  capital  fire-extinguishers,  in  spite  of  the 
single  "s"  in  their  name.  Garzon  seems  to  mean 
"fireman,  or  the  servant  boy  who  tends  the  firea." 
—  37,  38:  read  only  cam'  but  barbaro(igo)  cerbero. — 39, 
40,  41  :  read  only  granda,  scrigni,  oro.  — 45:  Here  the 
proper  name  is  to  be  read  literally  :  "  My  fidelity  is  more  of 
a  piece  of  gold  than  the  Soranzo  who  bears  that  epithet." 


Ma  la  mia  poverti 

No  xe  tal  che  [wit]  no  possn  donarte 

Canzon  sonetti  stan/.e — Fatti  con  qnalche  arte, 

Che  6  consegnade  ESTAMPARIA  QUERINI. 
50  Poderia  forse  nn  zorno,  avendo  sorte, 

Tior  el  to  nome  ai  CONTARINI  MORTE. 

Se  ti  savcssi,  o  Catte, 

Come  stago  per  ti,  come  sbassiso  ! 

Co  no  te  vedo,  muoro, 

E  co  te  vedo,  oddio,  me  par  morir! 

Ma  tutto  el  resto  6  niente, 

Respetto  a  quando,  sotto  i  to  balconi, 

De  notte  tempo  col  GRIAIAXI  SCURO, 

Battendo  al  Conlarin  pwte  deferro, 
60  Nessun  no  me  responde  ; 

E  dopo  sul  sogier  sonni  stentai, 

A  darme  retto  no  vegnisse  almanco 

Kl  Pisani  dal  banco  ; — E  a  reparer  dal  freddo, 

Sta  mia  vita  meschina, 

Avessio  adosso  el  MOROSIN  SCHIAVINA. 

Ma  quel  ch'6  pezo  ancora — Ti  s^  se  gho  desgusto  ! 

No  credistu  ch'el  sapia 

Che  se  Santa  te  porta  de  sti  avvisi, 

Crndel,  ti  ghe  respond!, — Col  Priuli  dai  risil 
70  Oh  quante  volte  m'S  salta  I'umor — 

Catte,  tel  vogio  dir — De  tionne  al  to  rigor, 

E  cercando  altro  ciel,  mudar  mia  sorte. 

Giera  quasi  ressolto 

In  sul  BALBI  montar  DEL  GALION, 

E  sul  PRIULI  DELLA  NAVE  andar 

Contro  el  Pisani  turco  a  battaggiar. 

M'aveva  zii  provisto — De  zacco  e  vanto  forte, 

De  targa  e  pugnaletto — E  m'aveva  setao 

El  CELADINA  GIUSTINIAN  in  C30. 

80  Quando  quel  furfantello — D'Amor,  [eta]  m'ebbe  visto 
Co  sti  arnesi  arredosso, — Ridendo  a  piu  non  posso, 
Cosi  me  dise,  el  tristo  : 
"No  ti  xe  pur  Grimani  pazzarello, 
A  creder  de  scampar, 

Se  ti  a  Catte  in  tel  cuor,  gramo  ignorante  ! 
Catte  sari  con  ti  anco  in  Levante, — 
Se,  co'l  proverbio  dise — Uno  che  vogia  ben 
El  vive  sempre  con  la  bissa  in  sen." 
Donca  se  a  sto  mio  mal  no  ghe  remedio, 

90  Miedeghi,  ande  con  Dio — E  s'e  insegnii  mai 
A  miedegar  Amor,  el  nostro  raistro, 
Su  i  Dolfini  culata,  — Diseghe  ch'el  se  petta 
MOROSINI  GALENO  la  ricetta.— Moriro  mi  meschin, 
E  ti  Catte  cagnona  un  di.  Ma  tardi 

49 :  alteration  of  StamjMlia.  —  51  :  The  MS.  has  so 
for  to. — 61:  sonni:  "sounds,"  i.  e.,  "knocking,"  or  the 
more  frequent  "sneezing,"  or  else  sonni  slenfai  =  I<n]. 
"sonni  stentati,"  in  which  case  retto  may  be  read  lello. — 
62 :  vegnisse,  second  person  singular :  read  al  banco,  the 
seat  in  the  liagb  or  under  the  porch  of  the  palace  door.  — 
65:  schiamna :  "blanket." — 68:  Santa  is  the  name  of 
the  servant. —  75  :  Priuli  connotes prua,  orprova,  "prow." 
—  76  :  Pisani  again  with  a  double  sense.  —  79  :  celadina  : 
'  helmet,'  —  83  :  Grimani  connotes  gramo. 


206 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


Ti  pianzerl  el  mio  crudel  clestin. 
Qnando  sonaiulo  TREVISAN  BATTOCCHIO 
Lored  in  campanon, 
Te  diri  el  cucr  :  Xe  morto  el  ZOTTOBON. 

II  Fine. 

II. 

CANZONETTA  DI  UN'  AMANTE  INNAMORATO 
ALLA  SUA  AMIGA  NELLA  QUALE  SI  DE- 
SCRIVE  LE  PENE  E  TORMENTI  CHE 
PROVA  PER  AMOR  SCO.  NOMINANDOLI 
LI  SOPPvANOMI  DELLI  NOBILI  PATRIZJ 
VENETI.  CANTATA  PER  MUSICA  IN  LIN- 
GUA VENEZFANA. 

COMPOSTA  DALL'   ILLMO  SIG?  GIANFRANCESCO  Busi- 
NELLO,  SEGRETARIO  DELI.'  ECCMO  SENATO  VENETO. 

Per  ti  son  tocco  rnorto — Ninetta,  anema  mia, 
E  se  no  trovo  all' amor  mio  conforto, 
La  mia  vita  e  fenia. 
Tanto  son  pien  de  spasemi  e  d'affanni, 
5  Che  a  raartellarme  el  cuor, 

El  Marcello  me  par  aver  del  Cani. 

Peno,  me  struzo  e  moro — Per  zonzer  una  volta 
A  posst'der  quella  belta  ch'adoro. 
Deh,  el  mio  parlar  ascolta  ! 
10  Clie  a  veder  clie  con  mi  ti  e  sempre  sorda, 
Resto  storno  e  incanta, 
Che  son  giusto  un  Priul  potta  balorda. 

Son  pronto  a  far  de  tutto — Per  venzer  sto  antigenio, 
E  per  godar  delle  mie  pene  el  frutto. 
15  Per  darte  un  di  nel  genio, 

Fame  sentir  dalla  to  bocca  un  motto  ! 

Che  pronto  mi  saro 

A  deventar  anca  un  Dona  scimiotto. 

Se  ti  vol,  vestiro — Per  ti  alia  parigina  ; 
20  E  dove  ti  sara,  coraparird 
Con  gran  perucca  e  mina. 
Basta  che  ti  comandi,  anema  mia  : 
Che  nel  mio  portamento, 
Ti  vedarii  un  Molinfuzziol  dafia. 

25  Se  delle  parolette — Ti  ii  gusto  de  sentir, 
Sempre  col  stil  bizzaro  e  frase  elletta, 
Couiponero  el  mio  dir. 
Te  faro  delle  ottave  e  dei  sonetti. 
E  da  ti  vegniro 

Title  :  We  have  also  a  subtitle,  Canzonetlo  di  un  amante 
innamorato  ad  una  sua  arnica  nominandoli  li  sopranomi  de 
Nobili  Veneli.  — 6  :  a  pun  on  the  entire  verse  :  "  I  seem 
to  have  the  torment  of  a  dog  " ;  "  Marcello  certainly  does 
have  dogs."  Marcello  in  the  two  senses  of  martello,  con- 
necting with  martdlar.  —  11-12:  storno  :  "stupefied"; 
polta  balorda:  "dumfounded  idiot";  this  stock  phrase, 
common  enough  iu  the  Seicento  should  be  added  to 
Boerio.  —  18,  24  :  the  proper  names  are  taken  literally. 


30  In  compagma  del  Loredan  concetti. 

Se  ti  ami  serenate — D'aver  sotto  i  balconi, 
Queste  in  tempo  d'istii  te  sanl  fatte  : 
Con  dolci  canti  e  soni 
Far6  vegnir  da  notte  in  sti  confini 

35   PlFERO  PASOJJALIGO, 

DOLFIN  TIORBA  e  TROMBIOL  CONTAIUNI. 

Se  el  genio  malinconico — Ste  vanitil  non  cura, 
Imparero  per  ti  I'amor  platonico. 
Comanda  :  e  ti  e  segura 
40  Che  parcrd  un  chietin,  un  baccheton  ; 
E  chi  me  vedera, 
Tutti  me  crederil  Priuli  Scarpon. 

S'S  gusto  Nina  bcla — Che  staga  retira, 
Staro  con  ti  come  un  romito  in  cella. 
45  Sta  vogia  se  ti  ga, 

Per  secondarla,  credilo  d'amigo, 

Che  me  trattenirS 

Col  filoso/o  sempre  Pasqualigo. 

Se  ti  vol  chc  in  sta  parte — El  nostro  amor  sia  sconto, 
50  Said  col  BALBI  NOTTOLA  a  trovarte. 
E  per  no  far  affronto 
Al  to  concetto,  all'onor  to,  te  zuro 
De  no  vegnir  da  ti, 
Se  con  mi  no  ghe  xe  GRIMANI  SCURO. 

55  Se  andar  po  savero — Che  in  maschera  te  piasa, 

Col  moretta  Pisan  te  menerS 

Sempre  fora  de  casa. 

Se  el  ziogo  vedero  che  te  diletta, 

Dal  Pisani  dal  banco 
60  Te  mandero  col  CONTARIN  BASSETTA. 

[(S"e]  in  gondola,  in  battello — Dei  spassi  te  voi  dar, 

Me  faro  Barbarigo  buranello, 

Per  menarte  a  pescar. 

E  po  anderemo  a  marendar  alfin 

65  Dal  NANI  ALLA  ZUECCA, 

O  pur  dal  Morosini  del  Zardin. 

Se  fuora  qualche  mese — Genio  ti  avra  de  star, 
Te  menero  a  un  CASIN  DEL  VERONESE. 
O  pur  podremo  andar 
70  (Che  za  ghei  sedie  birbe  e  anca  carrozze) 

36:  tiorba  :  'short-sighted,'  but  here  used  in  its  other 
meaning  '  liute.'  — 42  :  implies  that  Priuli  was  a  chietin  : 
"  pharisee."  Scarpon  :  apparently  a  member  of  the  order 
of  scarpanti,  monks  who  wore  wooden  shoes  in  penitence. 
—  50:  "I  will  go  with  the  bats  to  see  you,"  i.  e.,  at 
night,  secretly. — 56,  60:  moretta:  "mask";  banco : 
"gamingtable";  bassetta  ;  "card  game." — 62:  bura- 
nello  :  "fisherman."  Burano  conducted  the  bulk  of  the 
fishing  trade.  —  68,  72  :  apparently  reference  to  specific 
resorts  of  mlleggiatura  :  the  Casin  dalle  Papozze  and  others 
in  the  Veronese  or  near  Brescia.  Quel  del  Sressa  may  have 
the  usual  ellipsis  of  territorio,  but  cf.  the  following  verse. 
Fina,  because  Brescia  is  so  remote. 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


207 


Fina  in  quello  [CASIN]  DEL  BRESSA, 
E  del  Querini  pur  dalle  papozze. 

Me  brnmistu  corrivo?—  To  zuro  in  verita 
die  per  ti  deventar  me  sottoscrivo 
75  Moroiini  pelld. 

La  romperS  per  ti,  caro  tesoro, 

Col  CONTARIN  DAI  SCBIGNI, 

E  te  fare)  un  Soranzo  iocco  d'oro. 

Con  rispetto  parlar — Faro  do  ti  la  fama, 
80  E  el  titolo  da  ogn'un  te  faro  dar 

Del  GIUSTINIAN   MADAMA. 

Te  mandaro  con  tanta  pompa  e  mina, 
Che  stimada  da  tutti 
Camera  ti  sara  dalla  regina. 

85  Vorastu  abiti  fini  ? — Te  i  faro  ricchi  intorno, 

Tutti  guarnij  dc  Morosin  franzini, 

De  zogie  el  collo  adorno 

Pur  che  ti  gabbi,  no  ghe  penso  un  figo 

Che  te  vegna  per  casa 
90  Tutto  el  di  dalle  perle  el  Mocenigo. 

Far6,  non  za  de  scato — Ma  de  rasa  vestia, 
Col  cendil  sgionfo  e'l  canareggio  in  moto, 
Te  vegna  drio  una  fia  : 
Vorro  proprio  la  para  un' Artemisia 
95  A 1  sussiego,  al  contegno, 

Ma  che  no  tenda  al  Bragadin  negrisia. 

Che  la  sia  de  sta  rnina — Cosi  1'intendo  mi : 
Che  a  vederla  cosi,  tutti  indovina 
Quel  che  de  piu  xe  in  ti. 
100  La  voi  ricca  de  mine,  e  che  abbia  intorno, 
Mai  con  ella  alter;!, 
Sgnardottn  Morosini  e  notte  e  zorno. 

A  to  requisizion — Comer  dalla  Ca  Granda 
Ti  avera  per  to  alozo  e  abitazion 
105  Con  orto  da  una  banda  ; 

E  el  Barbaric/0  IN  CAO  della  terraza, 

Che  te  serva  qualch'ora 

Per  passarte  quell' occa  che  strapazza. 

73  to  78  :  the  M3.  has  mo  ;  but  the  sense  is  :  "do  you 
wish  me  generous  (coriYo)?  "  Pella:  "poor";  then,  "I 
will  break  off  my  relations  with  my  treasure  boxes  (scrigni) 
and  make  you  like  a  piece  of  gold,  or  as  rich  as  a 
Soranzo."  —  81  :  "I  will  have  you  given  G.'s  title,  viz., 
madaina."  —  86:  Molmenti  has  framoni:  "ornaments, 
laces."  —  91  to  96  :  scato  :  "  woolen  " ;  sgionfo  :  the  tour- 
nure,  involving  the  whole  skirt,  was  in  the  height  of 
fashion  around  1640  and  after ;  canarcygio  :  the  exact 
meaning  of  this  word,  which  appears  also  in  Goldoni, 
I  have  not  been  able  to  determine.  Perhaps  Ital. 
"  sculettando  "  ?  Negrisia  :  negra,  on  the  analogy  of 
possibly  egizia  and  the  like  ;  she  will  have  no  negress  for  a 
servant,  but  a  real  lady,  to  show  how  much  more  of  a  lady 
(vv.  97-9)  Nina  ia. — 106:  "and  a  terrace  on  top  like 
that  of  the  Barbarigo  palace." 


Vorrastu  far  gran  tola?— EL  VENIER  CAPPE  CE, 
110  Priuli  PIGNATIN  e  Culdcriola 
Faro  star  sulle  soe. 

Co  quel  becchin  no  voi  che  vaga  in  hallo 
Ne  mattina  ne  sera, 
PfilUL  BBUO  LONGO  o  Morosini  gallo. 

115  MOROSINI  CAPON — Vogio  che  in  caponera 

Ti  gabi  sempre  a  to  requisizion 

La  mattina  e  la  sera  ; 

E  appresso  a  questo  assai  piu  bone  spese 

Te  farzl  de  mia  parte 
120  Contarinifasan  piu  volte  al  mese. 

Voi  che  sera  e  mattina — Te  serva  d'antipasti 
E  1'inverno  e  1'istae  FALIEU  PUINA, 
Come  pur  de  popasti 
Oltre  altri  frulti  rari  e  pelegrini 
125  Che  te  faro  sentir  : 

Te  proveda  dei  perseghi  el  Querini. 

SarO  in  ogni  stagion — Accio  ride  all'ingrosso, 
Ai  bisogni  de  casa  nn  BALBI  OCCHION. 
Tutto  quel  che  voi,  posso. 
130  Dove  son  mi,  no  vien,  se  non  stravedo, 

Mai   PRIULI   SACCHETTO, 

Perche  6  sempre  de  su  CASSON  SAG  REDO. 

Faro  ben  che  in  quell' ora — Vegna,  co  fa  bisogno, 
Farse  el  BALBI  sentir  BUKATAORA. 
135  Se  me  pararia  un  sogno 

El  vederte  a  raagnar,  5  dolce  Clori, 

Piu  col  Dona  dai  risi 

Che  con  mi  vermicelli  e  caoli  fieri. 

Se  po  te  occorreri— Che  per  ti  fazza  el  bravo, 
140  El  bulo,  el  sbarufarsi,  zs\  ti  sa 
Che  de  gniente  me  cavo. 
Per  ti  sempre  tiero  la  lanza  in  resta. 
E  co  faril  bisogno 
GIUSTINIAN  CELADINA  avcro  in  testa. 

145  Sarci  PRIULI  GRAN  CAN — Con  chi  te  oltragiera : 
Fato  in  mi  troverS,  turco  Pisan, 
Quei  che  t'offendera  ; 

109  :  cappe  ce  ;  apparently  an  intercalare  :  Molmenti 
has  noted  the  role  of  speech  mannerisms  in  popular 
satire  :  cappe  is  an  oath,  here  used  for  cappa  (del  forno). 
The  puns  here  are  rather  involved  :  the  epithets  refer  to 
the  requisites  for  dining  but  also  constitute  contemptuous 
descriptions  of  the  rival.  liruo  longo;  "thin  soup." 
Boerio  does  not  note  this  regular  Venetian  parallel  to  the 
It.  decotlo,  "cheap  slop  of  a  person."  Gallo  :  regular 
metaphor  for  Zerbino.  —  122  :  puina  :  It.  ricotta.  a  deli- 
cious by-prcduct  of  milk  in  the  manufacture  of  cheese. — 
130  :  "  It  will  not  be  a  question  of  little  bags  of  supplies 
but  of  big  boxes,  with  my  munificence." — 134  :  buraUiora  : 
"gossip,"  but  also  "floursifter."  Then:  "I  shall  be 
surprised  if  with  me  you  don't  have  more  cauliflowers 
and  vermicelli  than  you  now  have  of  ordinary  rice." 


208 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


E  senza  far  parole  n5  schiamazzi 
Conoscer  me  faro 
150  Da  i  to  nemici  Priuli  tagia  brazzi. 

Per  altro  se  ti  avesse— Qualch'altro  amor  nel  petto 
E  che  compir  savesse  ai  to  interessi, 
Sodisfar  el  genietto 

Son  disposto,  cuor  raio,  non  aver  teraa  : 
155  Che  per  no  disgustarte, 

Co  ti  vorra,  saro  Pisani  flema. 

Faro  1'orbo  e  anca  el  sordo  ; — A  so  tempo  a  so  liogo 
Andererno,  mio  ben,  sempre  d'accordo. 
Segondero  el  to  ziogo : 
160  A  to  piaser  me  lassero  dar  scacco, 
E,  benchS  con  mia  pena, 
Me  lassero  spassar  par  Corner  tacco. 

Morite,  mia  Ninetta, — A  ste  calde  espression, 
E  piu  a  longo  no  far  la  ritrosetta 
165  A  tante  impromission. 

Introduseme  in  ca»a,  o  me  despiero. 
Avertime,  e  no  esser 
Contarini  con  mi  porte  de  ferro. 

Se  el  to  bel  me  consola — Col  deventar  amante, 
170  Non  dabitar  che  mi  in  amarte  mola. 
Saro  fido  e  costante  ; 
E  de  fermezza  saro  senza  fallo 

Un  TREVISAN  BATTOCCHIO, 

E  piii  tosto  diro  PISANI  PALO. 

175  Eissolvi  via,  mio  ben, — Destuar  quella  fiama. 

Che  impizza  le  mie  viscere  nel  sen. 

Ama,  cara,  chi  t'ama. 

Fa  che  un  di  del  to  amor  me  trova  pago. 

E  per  tirarme  sii, 
180  No  nie  andar  a  cercar  Grimani  spago. 

No  dubitar,  mia  bella, — Che  el  mio  amor  mai  fenissa ; 
Che  per  ti  son  PRIULI  DALLA  STELLA, 

Ma  DALLA  STELLA  FISSA. 

Ne  temer  del  mio  cuor  mai  falsitil : 
185  Che  nel  trattar  con  ti, 

Sard  sempre  un  MARCELLO  PURIT!. 

162:  tacco  :  "pheasant,"  almost  the  usual  "peacock," 
"strutting  fellow." — 173:  batochio :  "hammer  of  a 
bell,  door-knocker,"  or  else  "staff,"  therefore  some- 
thing stiff  and  unyielding.  The  polo  is  the  anchorage 
for  the  gondola,  the  buoys  in  the  lagoons ;  some- 
thing reliable  and  fixed.  So  mola  above,  from 
molar,  "to  unmoor,"  carries  out  the  figure.  Above, 
el  to  Id,  "  your  beauty."  — 179  :  tirar  su :  "  uccellare  "  in 
all  derived  senses  ;  in  fact  exactly  "  to  get  on  the  string," 
"  to  torment."  However,  tirar  su  also  means  "  entrar  in 
battaglia  amorosa."  Around  this  locution  Busenello 
wrote  a  series  of  conceits  in  the  Dora.  The  phrase  origi- 
nated in  the  letting  down  and  drawing  up  of  rope  ladders 
in  secret  intrigues.  Cf.  Bandello,  Novdle,  I,  15. — 191  : 
cailello  is  the  burial  gondola,  as  well  as  "bier." 


Qua  me  butto  in  zenocchio — E  te  prego  voler 
Vardarme  un  di  col  Morosin  belt* occhio. 
Del  resto,  non  temer  : 
190  Che  in  servitu  saro  fedel  e  forte, 
Finche  Donti  cailello 
Me  vien  a  tior  col  CONTARINI  MORTE. 


II  Fine. 


A.  A.  LIVINGSTON. 


Columbia  University. 


ANOTHER  CONTEMPORARY  ALLUSION 
IN  CHAUCER'S   TROILUS 

If  Professor  Lowes' s  extremely  plausible  inter- 
pretation *  of  Chaucer's  line, 

Bight  as  our  firste  lettre  is  now  an  A,2 

as  a  delicate  compliment  to  Queen  Anne  the 
consort  of  Richard  be  accepted,  it  definitely 
establishes  for  Troilus  and  Criseyde  a  date  subse- 
quent to  the  royal  marriage,  January  14,  1382. 
With  the  composition  of  this  poem_  thus  fixed. 
almost  mth^certainty,  between  1382  and  1386  (at 
the  latest)  one"  finds  new  interest  in  a  passage  in 
Book  iv,  giving  an  account  of  the  council  called 
to  consider  the  exchange  of  Criseyde  for  Ante- 
nor.  In  this  account  lines  169-210— -as  Mr. 
Rossetti's  parallel  column  indicates, — have  no 
counterpart  in  II  Filostrato.  Chaucer,  in  these 
six  stanzas,  after  bringing  out  more  clearly  the 
motives  which  led  Troilus  to  keep  silence  during 
a  discussion  which  so  vitally  affected  him,  repre- 
sents Hector  as  stoutly  opposing  the  proposition 
to  exchange  Criseyde.  For  this,  however,  he  is 
at  once  taken  to  task  by  the  "peple,"  who  ex- 
citedly demand  the  ransom  of  Antenor,  declaring 
to  King  Priam, 

'  That  al  our  voys  is  to  for-gon  Criseyde'  (v.  195). 

The  voice  of  the  people  prevailed  :  it  was  deter- 
mined by  the  "parlement"  that  Criseyde  should 
be  "yelden  up"  for  Antenor, 

Al-theigh  that  Ector  'nay'  ful  ofte  preyde  (v.  214). 

In  striking  contrast  to  this  account  in  Troilus, 
Boccaccio's   mention   of  the    "parlamento"     is 

lPubs.  M.  L.  A.,  xxin,  285 ff. 
2  Troilus  and  C.,  i,  171. 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


209 


brief  and  colorless  and  does  not  enable  us  to  dis- 
tinguish at  all  those  who  took  sides  pro  or  con  :— 

molte  cose  ragionate 
Fur  Ira'  baron,  di  quel  che  bisognava 
Ora  al  presente  per  le  cose  state  ; 
E  come  e  detto,  a  chi  quelle  aspettava 
Fur  le  risposte  interumente  date, 
E  cbe  fosse  Griseida  renduta, 
Chi  mai  non  v'  era  stata  ritenuta  (iv,  st.  xvii). 

Chaucer's  account  of  the  ' '  parlemeut "  shows, 
in  one  or  two  points  already  noted  by  Professor 
Hamilton,  the  influence  of  the  form  of  the  story 
given  by  Benoit  and  Guido.  Hector's  protest 
against  the  exchange  of  Criseyde  was  in  all  prob- 
ability suggested  by  his  speech  against  the  truce 
with  the  Greeks,  as  it  is  recorded  by  these  older 
authorities,  Moreover,  Professor  Hamilton  justly 
observes,  ' '  the  outcry  of  the  people  against  this 
plea  is  suggestive  of  their  better  [?  bitter]  expres- 
sion of  opinion  upon  Calchas  when  they  learn 
that  he  wishes  his  daughter,  as  stated  in  the  same 
authorities. "  s  In  order  to  bring  out  the  exact 
relation  in  which  Chaucer's  account  stands  to  the 
earlier  form  of  the  story  I  quote  the  correspond- 
ing portion  of  Guide's  text.  Benoit' s  narrative, 
though  somewhat  longer,  supplies  no  additional 
points  of  comparison. 

Hie  calcas  pro  predicta  filia  sua  briseida 
regem  agamemnon  &  alios  grecorum  reges  sol- 
licite  deprecatur  vt  predictam  filiam  suam  a  rege 
priamo  si  placet  exposcant  vt  earn  restituat  patri 
suo.  Qui  eidem  regi  priamo  preces  plurimas 
obtulerunt.  sed  troiani  contra  calcam  antistitem 
multum  impugnant  assereiites  eum  esse  nequis- 
simum  proditorem  &  ideo  morte  dignum.  Sed 
rex  priamus  ad  petitionem  grecorum  inter  com- 
mutationem  anthenoris  &  regis  thoas  briseidam 
grecis  voluntarie  relaxauit.4 

According  to  this  account,  it  will  be  observed, 
the  responsibility  for  handing  over  Criseyde  to  the 
Greeks  rests  solely  upon  Priam,  who  overruled  the 
protests  of  the  Trojans  and  granted  the  petition  of 
the  Greek  ambassadors  by  a  decisive  exercise  of 
his  royal  authority.5 

8  G.  L.  Hamilton,  Chaucer's  Indebtedness  to  Guido,  1903, 
p.  105-6. 

4  Quoted  from  the  Strassburg  ed.  of  the  Hist.  Troiuna, 
1489. 

6  With  this  accords  also  Guide's  statement  a  little 
later:  "Troilus  vero  postquam  agnouit  de  sui  patris 
procedere  voluntate  de  briseida  relaxanda  &  restituenda 
grecis — ." 


Chaucer,  now,  has  contrived  by  a  series  of  de- 
liberate changes  to  put  a  wholly  different  face  on 
the  affair.  In  the  first  place,  he  directly  reveises 
the  attitude  of  the  protesting  Trojans.  In  the 
Jlisloria  Troiana  their  hatred  of  Calchas  leads 
them  to  cry  out  against  the  proposition  to  send 
Criseyde  to  the  Greek  camp  ;  in  Chaucer's  poem, 
through  a  desire  to  recover  Antenor,  they  vehe- 
mently urge  that  the  exchange  be  made.  Again, 
the  "parlement"  at  which  the  exchange  is  dis- 
cussed, instead  of  being  (as  Boccaccio' s  parlamento 
implies)  a  "parley,"  is  represented  according  to 
the  English  signification  of  the  word.  It  is  a 
formal  deliberative  assembly  in  which  decrees  are 
enacted  by  majority  vote:  ("For  substaunce  [i.  e. 
majority]  of  the  parlement  it  wolde,"  v.  217). 
These  decrees  are  ' '  pronounced  by  the  presi- 
dent ' '  and  have  thenceforth  final  authority  with- 
out possibility  of  appeal  :  ("what  wight  that  it 
with-seyde,  /  It  was  for  nought,  it  moste  been,  and 
sholde.")  Priam's  position  in  the  "parlement" 
is  not  made  altogether  clear.  He  is  present,  for 
the  people  appeal  to  him  directly  (vv.  194-6),  in 
their  opposition  to  Hector.  But  there  is  nothing 
in  the  narrative  to  identify  the  king  with  the 
presiding  officer  of  the  "parlement" — another 
indication  that  Chaucer  was  following  English 
usage.  And  in  any  case  King  Priam  no  longer 
appears  as  a  dominating  figure.  It  is  the  will  of 
the  majority  which  prevails  ;  Hector  is  out-voted 
and  the  king  does  not  once  speak  his  mind. 

According  to  Chaucer's  account,  therefore,  the 
decision  to  exchange  Criseyde  becomes  a  striking 
instance  of  the  blindness  of  the  popular  will. 
Moreover,  in  order  to  emphasize  the  danger  to 
the  state  resulting  from  such  deference  to  ' '  the 
noyse  of  peple,"  two  stanzas  (vv.  196-210)  are 
devoted  to  enforcing  the  moral  and  to  pointing 
out  the  calamities  which  this  ill-advised  act 
brought  upon  Troy. 

The  noyse  of  peple  up-stirte  thanne  at  ones, 
As  breme  as  blase  of  straw  y-set  on  fyre  ; 
For  infortune  it  wolde,  for  the  nones, 
They  sholden  hir  confusioun  desyre. 

O  luvenal,  lord !  trewe  is  thy  sentence, 

That  litel  witen  folk  what  is  to  yerne 

That  they  ne  finde  in  hir  desyr  offence  ; 

For  cloud  of  errour  lat  hem  not  descerne 

What  best  is  ;  and  lo,  here  ensample  as  yerne. 

This  folk  desiren  now  deliveraunce 

Of  Antenor,  that  broughte  hem  to  mischaunce. 


210 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


There  is  in  these  lines,  in  ray  opinion,  a  dis- 
tinct allusion  to  the  great  uprising  of  the  peasants 
in  1381.  The  first  two  lines  should  be  compared 
with  the  well-known  passage  in  the  Nonne  Preestes 
Tale,  in  which  Chaucer  makes  express  reference 
to  the  peasants'  rebellion  : — 

So  hidous  was  the  noyse,  a  benedicite  ! 
Certes,  he  lakke  Straw,  and  his  meynee, 
Ne  made  never  shoutes  half  so  shrille, 
Whan  that  they  wolden  any  Fleming  kille. 

(B4583-C). 

Stress  is  laid  in  both  passages,  it  will  be  noted, 
upon  the  same  characteristic  of  popular  tumults — 
the  "noyse."  Very  possibly  the  shouts  of  the 
crowd  had  rung  in  Chaucer's  own  ears,  for  one 
could  hardly  have  lived  in  London  during  the 
summer  of  1381  without  getting  at  least  a  glimpse 
of  the  rioting  which  took  place.6 

Moreover,  as  soon  as  one  recognizes  that  in  the 
Troilus  passage  Chaucer  is  thinking  of  England 
quite  as  much  as  of  Troy,  one  perceives  the  reason 
for  the  changes  which  he  has  introduced  into  the 
story  of  the  "parlement."  Each  of  the  modifica- 
tions which  we  have  noted  was  designed  to  make 

6 1  relegate  to  a  foot-note  a  question  which  at  this  point 
inevitably  suggests  itself :  Did  Chaucer,  under  the  figure 
of  the  "  blase  of  straw,"  veil  an  allusion  to  the  notorious 
peasant  leader — to  whom,  as  we  have  seen,  he  makes 
express  reference  in  the  Nonne  Preestes  Tale  ?  It  is  to  be 
noted  in  this  connection  that  Gower  puns,  not  once  but 
twice,  on  Straw's  name  : 

Hec  erat  ilia  dies,  subito  qua  maxima  quercus 

A  modico  leuiter  stramiue  vulsa  cadit. 

Ecce  dies,  in  qua  sua  stramina  stramen  habebat, 

Que  nullo  precio  grana  valere  putant. 
(Vox  Clam.,  I,  651-2,  655-6.     Macaulay  calls  attention 
to  the  first  instance  but  not  to  the  second). 

Though  Chaucer  is  not  given  to  punning,  he  has  recently 
been  suspected  in  one  instance  of  playing  on  the  name  of 
the  Queen  (see  Lowes,  Pubs.  M.  L.  A.,  xxni,  291,  note). 
If  a  personal  allusion  is  to  be  recognized  in  "an  A," 
surely  it  is  not  impossible  in  the  "  blase  of  straw."  If  I 
am  right  in  seeing  in  the  passage  before  us  a  definite 
allusion  to  the  events  of  1381,  Straw's  name  would  neces- 
sarily have  been  present  in  Chaucer's  mind,  and  I  am 
disposed  to  believe  that  it  suggested  the  figure  which  he 
here  employs.  The  figure  is  in  itself  apt,  whether  it  car- 
ries a  personal  allusion  or  not  ;  and  even  if  a  word-play 
was  intended  it  does  not  in  the  least  deflect  the  course  of 
the  thought,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  objec- 
tionable. 


the  story  apply  more  perfectly  to  the  political 
events  in  England  which  were  in  his  mind.  On 
no  other  hypothesis,  it  seems  to  me,  can  his  de- 
liberate departure  from  tradition  be  satisfactorily 
explained. 

When  one  considers  the  profound  impression 
which  these  scenes  of  disorder  made  upon  all 
thoughtful  persons  of  the  time,  one  easily  under- 
stands the  deep  seriousness  which  Chaucer  puts 
into  these  phrases.  Though  his  story  is  of  Troy 
his  thoughts  have  turned  for  the  moment  to 
' '  Troia  Nova, ' '  as  London  was  often  called  after 
the  appearance  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  His- 
toria  Regum  Britanniae.1  In  this  connection  it 
may  be  worth  remarking  that  Gower,  in  his  Jere- 
miad on  the  uprising  of  1381,  also  uses  the  figure 
of  Troy  to  represent  London.  Some  passages  in 
the  Vox  Clamantis  which  emphasize  the  lack  of 
foresight  shown  by  the  riotous  peasantry  may 
even  be  compared  in  their  general  tone  with  the 
lines  of  Chaucer  quoted  above.  For  example  : — 

Sic  fcra  rusticitas  incircumspecta  malorum 
Incipit,  et  finem  non  videt  inde  suum. 

(Lib.  i,  907-8). 

The  purpose  of  such  comparisons  is  by  no 
means  to  find  a  "source"  for  Chaucer's  lines. 
The  similarities  which  exist  are  amply  accounted 
for  when  we  reflect  that  Chaucer  and  Gower  were 
writing  in  the  midst  of  the  same  political  and 
social  agitations.  Gower's  vision  of  "Nova 
Troia ' '  shows  that  it  was  entirely  natural  in 
putting  forth  observations  on  events  in  England 
to  use  the  figures  of  Trojan  story.  Though  he 
employs  a  different  method,  Chaucer  likewise,  by 
using  the  debate  over  the  exchange  of  Criseyde 
as  a  parable  to  illustrate  the  blindness  of  popular 
clamor,  shows  that  the  connection  between  Troy 
and  London  was  easily  established. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  call  attention,  in  connec- 
tion with  this  passage  in  Troilus,  to  the  well- 
known  lines  of  the  "Auctor"  in  the  Clerk's 
Tale  (IS,  995-1001),  apostrophizing  the  "stormy 
peple,  unsad  and  ever  untrewe."  Though  the 
scene  of  this  Tale  is  in  Lombardy,  ten  Brink  8 
recognized  in  these  lines  an  allusion  to  the  enthu- 
siastic reception  given  to  Richard  II  in  1387  by 

7  See  Lib.  I,  cap.  xvn. 

8  Geschichle  der  engl.  Lilt.,  n,  127. 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


211 


the  Londoners,  who  only  a  few  months  before  had 
bitterly  opposed  him.  Whether  Chaucer's  refer- 
ence be  to  such  a  specific  event  or  not,  at  least  we 
shall  not  be  mistaken,  I  think,  in  seeing  in  these 
lines  another  allusion  to  political  affairs  in  Eng- 
land. 

The  Knight's  Tale,  likewise,  though  it  deals 
with  Athens  and  Thebes,  affords  more  than  one 
allusion  to  events  in  England  in  Chaucer's  own 
time.  Professor  Skeat,9  years  ago,  recognized  in 
the  phrase  "the  cherles  rebelling"  (A  2459)  a 
reference  to  the  peasants'  rebellion.  More  re- 
cently Professor  Lowes10  has  pointed  out  in  "  the 
tempest  at  hir  hoom-cominge  "  (A  884),  men- 
tioned in  connection  with  the  "quene  of  Scithia," 
an  allusion  to  the  remarkable  storm  at  the  time 
Anne  landed  in  England.  And  within  a  few 
months  Professor  Emerson  "  has  argued  plausibly 
that  Chaucer  in  mentioning  the  "  certeyn  con  trees 
alliaunce"  considered  by  the  parliament  at  Athens 
(A  2970-4),  glanced  at  the  alliance  of  England 
and  Bohemia  in  1381.  Reference,  under  cover  of 
the  story  of  Troilus  and  Criseyde,  to  the  great  up- 
rising of  the  peasantry  under  Wat  Tyler  is  seen, 
therefore,  to  be  quite  in  keeping  with  Chaucer's 
method  elsewhere. 

In  its  bearing  on  the  question  of  Chaucer's 
chronology  the  Troilus  passage  which  we  have 
been  discussing  signally  confirms  the  conclusion 
which  Professor  Lowes  based  upon  his  interpreta- 
tion of  the  "letter  A."  To  my  mind  the  evi- 
dence of  the  ' '  letter  A  ' '  was  in  itself  sufficient  to 
carry  conviction.  But  supported  as  it  is  by  this 
reference  to  the  peasants'  rebellion,  it  must  estab- 
lish beyond  doubt  the  fact  that  Troilus  was  not 
written  earlier  than  1382. 


Bryn  Mawr  College. 


"Oxford  Chaucer,  I,  p.  Ivi.  Skcat's  interpretation  of 
this  phrase  is  endorsed  by  Tatlock  (Devel.  and  Chronol.  of 
Chaucer's  Works,  p.  80). 

10  Mod.  Lang.  Notes,  xix,  240-1. 

11  "A  New  Note  on  the  Date  of  Chaucer's  Knight's 
Tale,"  in  the  James  Morgan  Hart  Festschrift,  1910. 


JOTTINGS  ON  THE  HILDEBRANDS- 
LIED 

Some  time  ago  I  mentioned  (in  Mod.  Lang. 
Notes,  xxi,  110)  a  passage  from  Lajamon's  Brut 
as  throwing  light  on  the  much-discussed  line  63 
of  the  Hildebrandslied ;  cf.  Collitz's  statement  in 
Beitr.,  xxxvi,  372.  Perhaps  it  will  not  be  amiss 
briefly  to  call  attention  to  some  Old  English 
parallels  also  which,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge, 
have  not  yet  been  utilized  for  the  elucidation  of 
that  most  interesting  and  difficult  of  Old  High 
German  texts. 

22.  her  raet  ostar  hina, 

sld  Detrihhe  darba  yistuontun 
fateres  mines.1 

That  this  punctuation  (so  Heinzel)  is  really  the 
correct  one,  I  would  infer  from  the  use  of  analo- 
gous subordinate  clauses  (introduced  by  fia,  some- 
times fionne,  />cer):  Beow.  199  eivaft,  he  guftcyning 
.  .  .  tecean  wolde  .  .  . ,  />a  him  wees  manna  foearf ; 
ib.  2876  Az  him  wees  elnes  fiearf;  Par.  Ps.  58.9 
/>cer  me  wees  freondes  foearf;  Jud.  3  fia  heo  dhte 
mceste  foearfe  /  hyldo  fices  hehstan  Deman ;  Gen. 
1482,  1591,  Hollenf.  114.  There  is  no  allusion 
in  these  lines,  I  think,  to  a  subsequent  occasion 
on  which Hildebrand  helped  Dietrich — "a special 
legend  unknown  to  us,"  as  Koegel  suggests — , 
but  they  repeat  by  way  of  variation  the  state- 
ment of  1.  18  f.  To  apply  Heinzel' s  well-known 
formula,  11.  18  f.  +  20  ff.  +  22b  ff.  =  B  +  A  + 
B. 2  As  regards  the  following  dat  uuas  so  friunt- 
laos  man  (viz.,  Dietrich,  the  exiled  one),  which 
has  been  illustrated  by  reference  to  OE.  freond- 
leas,  itineleap  (ivrecca},  we  may  also  cite  Beow. 
2392  :  Eadgilse  wearft  /  jeasccaftiim  freond,  i.  e., 
Beowulf  lent  his  help  to  Eadgils,  who  is  called 
wrcecmcecg,  2379. 

28.    child  was  her  [allem~\  chonnem  mannum — 

says  Hadubrand  of  his  father.  Holthausen's  in- 
sertion of  a  Hem  is  all  the  more  acceptable  as  a 
sufficiently  near  parallel  from  the  Beowulf  is 

1  Braune's  text  of  the  Hildebrandslicd  has  been  followed. 

'With  Heinzel  and  Rieger  I  believe  that  we  have  no 
right  to  reject  as  a  blundering  scribe's  repetition  the  clause 
unti  Dcolnchhe  darba  yistontun,  which  follows  after  1.  26a. 


212 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[  Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


available  :  woes  mm  feeder  f  oleum  gecy/>ed,  .  .  . 
hine  gearive  geman  /  witena  welhwylc  wide  geond 
eor/>an,  262. 

31.    dot  du  neo  dana  halt  mit  sus  sippan  man 
dine  ni  gileitos. 

A  legal  term  is  here  applied  to  a  situation 
which  is  liable  to  lead  to  battle  (cf.  Ehrismann, 
Beitr.,  xxxn,  281;  also  ray  note,  J.  Engl.  and 
Gmc.  Ph.,  vin,  255 f. ).  It  should  be  compared 
to  />ing  gehegan — which  refers,  indeed,  to  the 
consummation  of  the  proceeding — in  Beow.  424  : 
and  nii  ivift  Grendel  sceal .  .  .  ana  gehegan  j  ^ing 
wift  foyrse.  This  parallel,  briefly  mentioned  by 
F.  Schulz,3  seems  to  have  been  practically  ig- 
nored, though  Trautmann  naturally  ascribed  this 
very  phrase  to  his  OE.  Ur- Hildebr  and. 

41.   pist  also  gialtet  man,  so  du  ewln  inwit  fuortos 

'  du  bist  in  Lug  und  Trug  (Tiicke)  alt  geworden. ' 
It  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  Brun.  46  one  of  the 
enemies,  Constantinus,  receives  the  epithet  of  eald 
inwitta.  This  interesting  coupling  of  '  cunning  ' 
and  'old'  (so  also  Hildebr.  39:  du  bist  dir  alter 
Hun,  unmet  spdher)  may  be  considered  a  not 
unnatural  variant  of  the  traditional  association  of 
'old  age'  and  'wisdom.'  An  intermediate  posi- 
tion is  occupied  by  Ludewlc  der  alte,  who  shows 
starke  liste,  Kudr.  894,  cf.  897. 4 

44a.    tot  ist  Hillibrant. 

Without  entering  upon  the  question  of  the 
meter,  I  beg  to  cite  the  similar  half-line,  Beow. 
1323b  :  dead  is  Aesehere, — the  metrical  status  of 
which  has,  by  the  way,  likewise  been  discussed 
(Child,  Mod.  Lang.  Notes,  xxr,  199). 

51.    ddr  man  mih  eo  scerita  in  folc   sceotantero. 

A  similar  thought  is  expressed,  though  in  dif- 
ferent phrasing  and  syntax,  in  Beow.  2638  ff. : 
•Se  he  usic  on  herge  geceas  /  to  ftyssum  slftfate  .  .  . 
/>e  he  usic  gdnvlgend  gode  tealde. 

65.    do  stopun  to  samane. 
In  addition  to  the  parallels  cited  in  M.  S.  D., 

3  F.  Schulz,  Die  Sprachfonnen  des  Hildebr ands-Liedes  im 
Beowulf.     Konigsberg  Programm,  1882. 

4  Perhaps  much  stress  cannot  be  laid  on  Predigtbruchst. 
(Gr.-Wii.,  n,  110),  1.  32:   wacctS  se  ealda  (the  devil), 
.  .   .  ehle&  sefestra,  inwit 


p.  11,  and  by  Heinzel,  Ubcr  die  ostgotische  Hel- 
densage,  p.  49,  there  may  be  mentioned  Maid. 
8  :  to  ficere  liilde  stop  (on  foot),  and  La^amon's 
Brut,  28408  f. :  heo  togadere  stopen  /  and  sturn- 
liche  fuhten,  where  togadere,  however,  possibly 
refers  to  the  assembling  of  Arthur's  host  rather 
than  to  the  encounter  of  the  two  armies.  The  use 
of  to  samane  is  matched  by  that  of  togcedere  in 
Beow.  2630  syftftan  hie  togcedre  gegdn  hcefdon, 
Maid.  67  to  lang  hit  him  /whte,  /  hivcenne  hi 
togcedere  gdras  bcron. 

68.    giivigan  miti  wdbnum. 

A  corresponding  phrase  cariying  the  sense  to 
be  postulated  for  this  passage,5  viz.,  'destroyed' 
( '  used  up  ' )  occurs  in  Maid.  228  :  forwegen  mid 
hiswcepne;  cf.  beivegen  (em.),  ib.  183. 


FE.  KLAEBEE. 


The  University  of  Minnesota. 


Modern  English :  Its  Growth   and  Present  Use. 
By  GEOEGE  PHILIP  KEAPP. 

The  title  of  Dr.  Krapp's  book  is  unhappily 
chosen.  The  main  title,  Modern  English,  is  mis- 
leading since  the  author  deals  for  the  most  part 
with  the  language  of  the  past.  The  sub-title,  Its 
Growth  and  Present  Use,  contains  the  redundant 
word  ' '  present ' '  and  is  otherwise  clumsy.  A 
better  title,  in  the  reviewer's  opinion,  would  be 
The  English  Language,  with  or  without  sub-title. 

A  text-book,  we  take  it,  should  combine  breadth 
of  scope  with  underlying  unity  of  design.  Dr. 
Krapp  is  perhaps  the  first  writer  of  a  text-book 
on  the  English  language  who  has  succeeded  in 
combining  these  two  requirements.  The  works 
on  the  English  language  by  Greenough  and  Kitt- 
redge,  Bradley,  and  Jespersen  are,  of  course,  not 
designed  primarily  as  text-books,  being  limited 
for  the  most  part  to  a  consideration  of  but  one 
aspect  of  the  language.1  The  works  of  Louns- 

3Cf.  Lochmann,  Kleinere  Schriften  zur  deutschen  Philo- 
O'jii,  p.  442  ;  Heinxel,  /.  c.,  p.  54. 

lrrhus  Kittredge  and  Greenough  in  Words  and  Their 
Ways  in  English  Speech,  The  Macmillan  Co.,  1901,  are 


November,  1011.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


213 


bury  and  Emerson,  though  planned  on  a  suffi- 
ciently comprehensive  scale  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  a  text-book,  are  divided  into  sections 
which  convey  an  inadequate  sense  of  the 
fundamental  unity  of  the  subject  with  which  they 
deal.2  Dr.  Krapp,  on  the  other  hand,  is  neither 
onesided  nor  piecemeal  in  his  treatment  of  his 
theme.  Within  the  compass  of  eight  compact 
and  closely  interrelated  chapters  he  presents  all 
that  the  beginner  needs  to  know  with  regard  to 
the  more  important  sides  of  English.  Further- 
more, his  treatment  is  scholarly  and  his  style  dis- 
tinguished by  a  vivacity  as  rare  as  it  is  refreshing 
in  text-books  on  linguistic  subjects. 

The  book  consists  of  an  introductory  and  a  con- 
cluding chapter  (chaps.  I  and  viu),  in  which  the 
author  presents  his  own  personal  views  upon  the 
question  of  good  English,  and  of  six  intermediate 
chapters  (chaps,  n-vii),  in  which  he  deals  more 
objectively  with  the  following  topics  :  The  English 
People  (chap,  u),  The  English  Language  (chap, 
in),  English  Inflections  (chap,  iv),  English 
Sounds  (chap,  v),  English  Words  (chap,  vi), 
and  English  Grammar  (chap.  vn).  Dr.  Krapp' s 
discussion  of  the  general  problem  of  good  English 
merits  more  than  passing  consideration  and  may 
best  be  examined  by  itself  before  turning  to 
a  consideration  of  the  more  specific  topics  dis- 
cussed in  the  chapters  that  intervene. 

According  to  Dr.  Krapp,  good  English  is  deter- 
mined not  by  any  ideal  standard  of  excellence  but 
by  the  practical  standard  of  social  usefulness. 
"Language,"  he  writes  (p.  5),  "is  a  form  of 
social  custom  and  its  function  is  the  expression  of 

concerned  primarily  with  the  life  history  of  English 
words  ;  Bradley  in  The  Making  of  English,  The  Macmillan 
Co.,  1904,  with  the  fortunes  of  the  English  inflectional 
system  ;  and  Jespersen  in  Growth  and  Structure  of  the  Eng- 
lish Language,  Teubner,  1905,  with  a  variety  of  interesting 
problems,  mainly  connected  with  English  syntax. 

4  Thus  Emerson  divides  his  History  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage, The  Macmillan  Co.,  1895,  into  what  are  virtually 
live  independent  sections,  entitled  respectively  The  Rela- 
tions of  English  to  Other  Languages,  The  Standard  Language 
and  the  Dialects,  The  English  Vocabulary,  The  Principles  of 
English  Etymology,  and  The  History  of  English  Inflections 
and  Lounsbury,  Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  1904,  divides  his 
History  of  the  English  Language,  into  two  equally  distinct 
sections,  entitled  respectively  Central  History  and 
of  Inflections. 


social  ideas."  Again  (p.  6),  that  language  is 
' '  the  best  which  enables  men  to  express  them- 
selves most  fully  and  satisfactorily  in  their  rela- 
tions to  each  other."  Still  again  (p.  9),  it  is 
in  "  the  immediate  social  relations  of  man  with 
man"  that  "the  final  test"  of  language  lies. 

No  one,  we  believe,  will  be  disposed  to  question 
the  essential  soundness  of  this  conception  of  lan- 
guage as  a  distinctively  social  institution.*  No 
modern  language  illustrates  the  operation  of  social 
forces  as  conspicuously  as  English.  The  social 
efficiency  of  our  language  has  unquestionably  re- 
sulted in  no  small  measure  from  tuch  mutual 
adjustment  between  the  foreign  and  native  ele- 
ments of  the  language  as  would  facilitate  inter- 
course between  Anglo-Saxon  and  Norman.  It  is 
primarily  to  this  need  for  intercommunication 
between  native  and  foreigner  that  we  must  as- 
cribe the  loss  of  grammatical  gender,  the  virtual 
abandonment  of  inflection,  and  other  simplifying 
processes  which  have  rendered  English  a  peculiarly 
efficient  medium  of  expression. 

To  the  author's  opinion  as  to  the  means  by 
which  social  efficiency  may  be  promoted,  decided 
exception  must,  however,  be  t:\ken.  Krapp  main- 
tains that  language  is  a  democratic  institution  and 
that  social  efficiency  is  to  be  determined  not  by 
the  authority  of  the  few  but  by  the  practice  of  the 
many.  "Whenever,"  he  writes  (p.  826),  "two 
minds  come  into  satisfactory  contact  with  each 
other,  through  the  medium  of  language,  we  have 
then,  so  far  as  each  instance  taken  by  itself  is 
concerned,  a  good  use  of  language.  The  rustic 
with  his  dialect,  and  in  his  own  homogeneous 
speech  community,  realizes  as  much  the  purpose 
of  language  as  the  most  polished  speaker  in  the 
'  best  society  '.  of  the  city. ' '  So  likovise  with  re- 
spect to  the  speech  of  the  nation  as  a  whole.  "A 

3  Save  Mr.  Clayton  Hamilton,  who  in  a  review  of  Mod- 
ern English  in  the  Forum,  Vol.  XLII,  pp.  277 ff.,  claims 
that  the  author's  social  view  of  language  makes  no  allow- 
ance for  the  fine  phrase  of  the  poet,  which  he  claims  would 
be  ruled  out  of  court  by  Krapp's  utilitarian  test.  In  reply 
it  need  only  be  said  that  the  author  is  not  writing  an  "Are 
Poetica,"  and  that,  even  if  he  were,  there  is  nothing  in 
his  social  theory  of  good  English  that  in  any  way  mili- 
tates against  the  very  evident  fact  that  a  feeling  of  excep- 
tional elevation  can  be  adequately  conveyed  only  by  a 
corresponding  heightening  in  the  form  of  expression. 


214 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


democracy  *  which  is  not  self-expressive  and  self- 
determining, "  he  writes  (p.  7),  "is  not  a  real 
democracy,"  and  again  (p.  8),  "democracy 
works  from  the  bottom  up,  and  not  from  the  top 
down."  Hence  (p.  9)  "the  general  level"  of 
a  democratic  speech  can  be  raised  <f  only  by  the 
sum  of  all  the  acts  of  the  people  who  make  up  the 
whole."  It  is  here  evident  that  the  author  makes 
no  distinction  between  the  speech  of  the  isolated 
community  and  that  of  the  nation  at  large  but 
regards  the  latter  in  no  less  degree  than  the  former 
as  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  collective  speech 
activity  of  the  several  individuals  of  which  it  con- 
sists. Hence  he  concludes  that  all  progress  in 
language  must  proceed  from  a  general  raising  of 
the  level  of  this  aggregate  from  below  upwards. 

To  this  view  of  -  the  democratic  nature  of  lan- 
guage the  reviewer  is  emphatically  opposed.  He 
believes,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  real  no  less 
than  the  literary  language  is  essentially  an  aris- 
tocratic institution.  For  while  language,  as  the 
author  rightly  contends,  is  a  social  institution, 
and  those  forms  of  expression  best  which  best 
serve  that  purpose  of  intercommunication  for 
which  language  exists,  it  is  evident  that  the  con- 
ditions of  intercommunication  in  the  rustic  com- 
munity differ  widely  from  these  same  conditions 
in  the  nation  at  large;  and  that  those  forms  of 
expression  which  serve  all  the  ends  of  intercom- 
munication, in  the  former  will  entirely  fail  to 
serve  those  same  ends  in  the  latter.  It  is  pre- 
cisely at  this  point  that  the  author's  analogy 
between  the  speech  of  a  local  community  and  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole  breaks  down.  Within  the  narrow 
limits  of  a  primitive  community  it  is  quite  possible 
for  each  individual  to  make  his  simple  wants 
known  to  his  neighbor  in  a  dialect  which  for  that 
community  will  serve  all  the  purposes  of  social 
efficiency.  Such  a  dialect  the  individual  might 
presumably  master  instinctively  and  without  refer- 
ence to  any  standard  beyond  the  borders  of  his 
own  community.  But  the  more  complex  social 
needs  of  a  nation,  involving,  as  they  do,  inter- 
communication beyond  the  borders  of  a  local  com- 
munity, clearly  demand  the  adoption  of  a  norm 

4  The  use  of  the  terra  democracy — frequently  employed 
by  the  author — is  objectionable  because  it  implies  that 
language  develops  differently  under  a  democracy  than 
under  a  monarchy  or  any  other  form  of  government. 


of  speech  which  shall  prove  intelligible  throughout 
the  nation.  Such  a  norm  of  speech  it  is  quite 
beyond  the  powers  of  even  the  most  highly  gifted 
member  of  the  nation  to  master  without  the  aid  of 
systematic  training  and  instruction.  When  we 
pass,  in  other  words,  from  the  local  community 
to  the  nation  at  large,  social  efficiency  clearly 
demands  the  adoption  of  a  standard  which  is  no 
longer  local  but  national  in  scope.  The  need  of 
such  a  standard  the  author  himself  appears  to  recog- 
nize when  he  writes  (p.  7)  "  the  national  speech 
of  a  democracy  cannot  be  sectional."  But  to  this 
statement  he  adds,  in  the  very  same  sentence,  the 
apparently  contradictory  assertion,  "If  there  is 
not  one  uniform  speech  acceptable  to  the  whole 
nation,  then  the  speech  of  one  region  must  have 
equal  authority  with  that  of  another."  For  if 
' '  the  speech  of  one  region ' '  should  ' '  have  equal 
authority  with  that  of  another,"  then  manifestly 
the  national  speech  of  a  democracy  could  not  be 
otherwise  than  sectional.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, such  a  state  of  affairs  is  entirely  impossible. 
In  the  constant  struggle  for  existence,  which  per- 
vades language  no  less  than  every  other  form  of 
human  activity,  it  is  quite  inconceivable  that  the 
dialects  of  two  separate  regions  should  retain  equal 
authority.  Even  before  our  modern  days  of  rapid 
intercommunication  between  all  parts  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world,  one  dialect — the  Midland — 
grew  at  the  expense  of  the  others  and  became, 
through  superior  social  efficiency,  the  recognized 
standard  throughout  the  English  nation.  While 
therefore,  it  is,  of  course,  true  that  good  English 
ultimately  springs  from  dialectal  English — and 
might,  therefore,  be  styled  democratic  in  origin — 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  dialectal  English  is 
good  English.  No  matter  how  freely  a  given 
locution  may  have  passed  current  within  a  local 
community,  it  does  not  deserve  to  be  ranked  as 
good  English  until  it  has  received  the  sanction  of 
national  approval  by  surviving  the  test  of  the 
broadest  social  usage.  It  thus  appears  clear  that 
to  secure  an  efficient  medium  of  communication 
throughout  the  nation  a  national  standard  of  some 
sort  must  be  adopted.  Every  individual  is  neces- 
sarily limited  in  his  speech  experience  by  birth, 
natural  aptitude,  and  social  environment.  The 
same  limitation  applies  —though  to  a  less  degree 
— to  any  class  or  community  of  individuals.  It  is 


November,  191 1.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


215 


only  by  laying  hold  of  a  standard  which  trans- 
cends personal,  local,  and  professional  limitations 
that  the  individual  may  enter  into  possession  of 
the  accumulated  wisdom  of  the  ages  and  enjoy 
communication  with  those  of  his  own  contempora- 
ries who  live  outside  the  range  of  his  own  limited 
experience.  In  other  words,  good  English  ap- 
pears to  us  to  be  a  distinctively  aristocratic  insti- 
tution since  it  represents  the  survival  of  the  forms 
of  speech  best  fitted  to  serve  both  as  a  past  and  as 
a  present  medium  for  national  intercommunication. 

We  believe,  however,  that  it  is  a  wholesome 
desire  to  protest  against  the  too  frequent  tendency 
to  accept  some  one  particular  standard  as  final 
that  has  led  Dr.  Krapp  to  pass  to  the  opposite 
extreme  of  denying  the  validity  of  any  external 
standard  whatsoever.  For  it  is  undoubtedly  true, 
as  the  author  constantly  implies,  that  no  single 
opinion  can  be  regarded  as  an  infallible  guide  in 
matters  of  language.  No  so-called  ' '  authority, ' ' 
self-constituted  or  otherwise,  be  it  grammar,  dic- 
tionary, literary  academy,  or  any  particular  group 
of  writers  or  speakers,  whether  living  or  committed 
to  the  peaceful  recesses  of  a  library  ' '  shelf, ' '  can 
possess  any  validity  other  than  that  conferred  by 
the  more  or  less  limited  range  of  social  experience  of 
which  that  authority  happens  to  be  the  expression. 
If  language  is  a  social  institution,  it  must  be  left 
free  to  develop  as  a  natural  result  of  the  ever 
widening  social  experience  of  the  race.  This  it 
obviously  cannot  do  if  checked  and  hampered  by 
the  necessarily  limited  prescriptions  of-  any  single 
' '  authority  ' '  or  set  of  ' '  authorities. ' '  But  if 
language  should  not  be  permitted  to  suffer  from 
the  prescriptions  of  dogmatic  authority,  just  as 
little  should  it  be  allowed  to  suffer  from  the  limita- 
tions of  individual  experience.  To  allow  the 
solitary  judgment  of  the  individual  to  replace  the 
winnowed  verdict  of  the  race  would  be  to  mistake 
the  true  nature  of  social  efficiency  and  to  obtain  a 
chaos  of  individual  instances  in  place  of  a  national 
uniformity  determined  by  the  collective  experience 
of  the  race.  A  standard  of  some  sort,  therefore, 
must  exist  and  to  that  standard  the  individual 
must  conform,  unless  he  undertake  to  defeat  the 
ends  of  language  by  preferring  a  less  to  a  more 
efficient  medium  of  communication. 

But  to  what  source  of  information — if  not  to 
some  definite  authority —Shall  the  bewildered  wan- 


derer in  the  mazes  of  the  English  language  turn 
for  linguistic  guidance  ?  In  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion the  reviewer  can  only  express  his  conviction 
that  the  English  language  may  be  likened  to  vir- 
tue or  any  other  moral  quality.  Virtue  is  never 
found  perfectly  exemplified  in  the  practice  of  any 
single  person  or  in  the  teaching  of  any  single 
school.  Yet  no  one  would  be  disposed  to  deny 
the  objective  existence  of  virtue  and  the  very 
urgent  necessity  incumbent  upon  everyone  of 
acquiring  it.  Nor  would  any  diligent  seeker 
after  virtue  be  at  a  loss  how  to  come  by  it.  He 
would  discern  instinctively  as  much  of  the  path 
at  any  given  moment  as  he  would  be  able  to 
pursue.  So  likewise  in  the  matter  of  language. 
While  not  even  the  most  accomplished  individual 
may  safely  trust  to  his  own  unenlightened  instincts 
in  matters  of  speech,  even  the  most  ignorant  at 
once  recognizes  good  English  when  he  hears  or 
reads  it.  For  a  while  he  must,  to  be  sure,  rely 
upon  the  example  of  men  of  wider  social  expe- 
rience than  himself,  but  the  more  extensive  his 
own  speech  contact  with  his  fellows  becomes  the 
less  will  he  be  compelled  to  depend  upon  the 
practice  or  teaching  of  others.  But  until  he  has 
exhausted  the  social  experience  of  the  race,  his 
need  for  instruction  from  others  can  never  wholly 
disappear. 

We  now  pass  to  a  consideration  of  chapters  n- 
vii,  in  which  the  author  gives  an  objective  and, 
for  the  most  part,  historical  presentation  of  the 
more  important  phases  of  the  English  Language. 

In  his  chapter  on  The  English  People  (chap, 
n),  Krapp  reviews  briefly  the  several  settlements 
in  England.  Occasional  exceptions  must  be  taken 
to  statements  in  this  chapter.  Thus  it  was  not 
(p.  16)  all.  "the  Celtic  inhabitants"  of  the 
island  ' '  who  called  themselves  Britons ' '  but  only 
the  Celtic  inhabitants  of  the  South,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  Goidels  of  the  North.  It 
appears  to  the  reviewer  questionable  whether  (p. 
17)  street  was  borrowed  from  the  Komans  "both 
on  the  continent  and  in  Britain  "  and  not  rather 
in  Britain  alone.  The  fact  that  street,  wall,  ivine, 
etc.  (cf.  p.  212)  occur  not  only  in  Old  English 
but  also  in  various  continental  German  dialects, 
hardly  seems  to  warrant  the  assumption  that  these 
words  were  borrowed  before  the  Anglo-Saxons  left 
the  continent.  Why  not  allow  the  porriMliiy  tr.;;t 


216 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


those  words — like  OE.  ceaster — were  borrowed 
from  the  Romanized  Britons  in  Britain  ?  In 
Britain  street  was  not  "borrowed  from  the 
Roman  soldiers,"  who  had  left  that  country 
before  the  arrival  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  but  from 
the  Romanized  Britons,  who  remained.  By  op- 
posing the  names  "  Roman  citizens  "  (p.  19)  and 
"Roman  Britons"  (p.  20)  to  "Celts"  (p.  19) 
the  author  seems  to  imply  that  the  Romanized 
Britons  were  not  Celts  but  Romans.  The  Britons 
of  the  South,  including  Vortigern  arid  his  follow- 
ers, were,  of  course,  of  the  same  race  as  the  Celts 
against  whom  they  fought.  Hengist  and  Horsa 
are  generally  supposed  to  have  been  Jutes  and  not 
(p.  20)  Saxons.  Worthy  of  special  commenda- 
tion is  the  vivacious  and  convincing  manner  in 
which,  at  the  end  of  the  chapter,  the  author  dis- 
poses of  the  attempts  to  introduce  Esperanto  and 
other  artificial  languages  into  general  use. 

In  his  chapter  on  The  English  Language  (chap, 
in)  Dr.  Krapp  enumerates  the  main  branches  of 
the  Indo-Germanic  family  of  languages  (with 
their  subdivisions),  and  describes  the  chief  char- 
acteristics of  the  Teutonic  branch.  It  may  appear 
futile,  at  this  late  date,  to  express  a  personal  pref- 
erence for  Indo-Germanic  as  a  more  appropriate 
designation  than  Indo-European  (p.  44)  for  a 
family  of  languages  that  includes  Iranian  and 
excludes  many  languages  of  Europe.  The  judi- 
cially brief  remarks  upon  primitive  speech  (p. 
45)  are  in  harmony  with  the  generally  nugatory 
results  of  recent  investigation  upon  this  obscure 
and  much  vexed  topic.  The  statement  (p.  46) 
that  British  was  the  language  of  "the  original 
inhabitants  of  Britain  "  is,  of  course,  incorrect 
and  contradicts  the  previous  correct  statement  (p. 
15)  that  the  original  inhabitants  were  "different 
pre-historic  races  about  whom  little  is  known." 
In  the  list  of  the  several  branches  ot'  the  Indo- 
Germanic  family  of  languages,  enumerated  from 
East  to  West  (p.  45),  the  demands  both  of  geog- 
raphy and  of  rhetoric  require  that  the  Teutonic 
(p.  46),  and  not  the  Balto-Slavic  (p.  47),  stand 
last.  For  cornus  (p.  51)  read  cornu.  To  the 
inexperienced  reader  the  expression  (p.  52) 
' '  tracing  back ' '  English  words  to  their  cognates 
in  other  Indo-European  languages  could  hardly 
fail  to  convey  the  impression  that  English  is  in 
some  way  derived  from  these  languages.  At  the 


end  of  the  chapter  the  author  divides  the  history 
of  the  language  into  the  three  main  periods  of 
Old,  Middle,  and  Modern  English  and  proposes 
to  trace  the  development  of  "sounds,  inflections, 
words,  and  syntax"  through  each  of  these  periods. 
In  his  chapter  on  English  Inflections  (chap, 
iv)  Dr.  Krapp  defines  the  term  inflection  and 
traces  the  fortunes  of  the  English  inflectional  sys- 
tem through  the  Old,  Middle,  and  Modern  English 
periods.  The  author's  statement  of  the  distinction 
between  inflection,  derivation,  and  composition  is 
unsatisfactory.  "It  is  best,"  he  writes  (p.  57) 
' '  to  regard  inflection  as  the  general  term,  includ- 
ing inflection  proper  and  derivation,  and  to  use 
the  specific  term  derivation,  or  composition,  for 
those  instances  in  which  the  elements  of  a  word  are 
plainly  felt  to  have  separate  existence. ' '  The  fol- 
lowing objections  may  be  made  to  this  use  of  the  term 
inflection.  In  the  first  place,  the  author  proposes  to 
employ  the  term  inflection  in  two  different  senses, 
in  a  narrow  sense,  to  indicate  "inflection  proper," 
i.  e. ,  a  change  in  the  form  of  a  word  to  indicate  a 
change  in  its  grammatical  relation,  and  in  a  broad 
sense,  to  include  "derivation  or  composition"  as 
well.  In  the  pages  that  follow,  however,  he  uses 
inflection  only  in  the  narrow  sense  and  this,  to 
avoid  logical  confusion,5  is  the  sense  to  which  the 
term  should  be  limited. 6  In  the  second  place,  the 
terms  derivation  and  composition  cannot  be  re- 
stricted to  words  in  which  "the  elements  are 
plainly  felt  to  have  separate  existence."  Thus 
the  derivative  element  -ly  in  likely  and  the  two 
compositional  elements  in  lord  «  OE.  hldford'), 
though  once  independent,  are  now  no  longer  felt  to 
have  separate  existence.  Finally,  it  would  be 
well  to  draw  a  sharp  distinction  between  deriva- 
tion and  composition  by  restricting  the  term  deri- 
vation to  the  formation  of  a  new  word  by  putting 
together  an  old  word  and  a  prefix  or  suffix  or  both 
(e.  g.,  unlike,  likely,  unlikely'),  and  the  term  com- 
position to  the  formation  of  a  new  word  by  putting 
together  two  old  words  (railroad).  The  redupli- 

5  As  well  as  to  provide  a  term  correlative  with  deriva- 
tion and  composition. 

c  Since  grammarians  have  not  yet  evolved  a  term  appli- 
cable alike  to  the  three  processes  of  inflection,  derivation, 
and  composition,  it  would  be  belter  either  to  invent  such 
a  term  or  else  to  rest  content  with  a  statement  of  the  essen- 
tial similarity  of  the  principles  involved  in  the  three 
processes. 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


217 


cation  hi  Old  English  might  be  compared  to  the 
reduplication  more  aptly  than  to  the  (p.  57)  "  aug- 
ments in  Greek. ' '  The  comparative  and  super- 
lative formations  of  the  Modern  English  adjective 
and  adverb  cannot  (p.  60)  "be  called  composi- 
tion." The  -er  and  -est  terminations  are  inflec- 
tional terminations  while  the  comparison  in  more 
and  most  is  a  phrasal,  not  a  compositional  forma- 
tion. The  author's  statement  (p.  61)  that  all  the 
Modern  English  pronouns  other  than  the  personal 
pronouns  inflect  only  for  number  and  case  fails 
to  take  account  of  the  demonstrative  pronouns 
this  and  that,  which  do  not  inflect  for  case. 
Exception  must  be  taken  to  the  statement  (p.  64) 
that  the  dative  case  of  the  noun  is  ' '  lost  in  Mod- 
ern English,"  whereas  the  accusative  case  sur- 
vives in  the  Modern  English  objective.  The  mere 
fact  that  in  the  former  case  the  noun  is  usually 
preceded  by  a  preposition,  by  no  means  deprives 
it  of  the  right  to  be  regarded  as  a  dative.  For 
the  dative  relation  may  be  expressed  without  the 
preposition  (cf.  "I  gave  the  man  a  blow"). 
Moreover,  as  the  author  takes  pains  to  explain  (pp. 
312  if. ),  function  rather  than  form  is  the  determin- 
ing factor  in  Modern  English  grammar  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  function  of  indirect 
object  is  as  definite  and  distinct  in  Modern  Eng- 
lish as  that  of  direct  object.  The  various  inflec- 
tional terminations  of  the  Old  English  noun  (p. 
65)  and  adjective  (p.  67)  might  better  be  arranged 
so  that  the  forms  peculiar  to  a  given  declension 
shall  stand  in  a  row  by  themselves.  Old  English 
bee  would  give  regularly  Modern  English  beech 
and  not  (p.  66)  bselc  (cf.  OE.  6rcc>Mod.E. 
breeches').  Is  it  not  possible  that  Modern  English 
"  she"  may,  like  the  plural  of  the  personal  pro- 
noun, be  due  quite  as  much  to  the  influence  of 
the  corresponding  Scandinavian  demonstrative 
pronoun  as  to  (p.  71)  "the  Old  English" 
demonstrative  adjective  seo,  which  is  rarely  used 
as  a  pronoun  ?  The  adverb  in  -um  (p.  72)  per- 
sists in  the  current  Modern  English  seldom  as 
well  as  "in  the  archaic  whilom."  The  adjective 
exceeding  in  the  Biblical  phrase  (p.  72)  "  exceed- 
ing glad"  is  far  more  probably  an  instance  of  the 
contemporary  use  of  the  adjective  for  the  adverb 
(cf.  Schmidt,  Shakespeare-Lexicon,  second  edi- 
tion, I,  379)  than  of  the  so-called  "flat"  adverb 
(cf.  fast,  slow,  etc.).  Some  explanation  should 


be  given  of  the  term  (p.  72)  "verbals." 
The  statement  (p.  74)  that  "the  only  kind 
of  word  stress  which  could  have  preserved  the 
full  inflectional  endings  of  the  Old  English 
period  is  a  general  or  distributed  stress,  spread 
over  the  word  as  a  whole,"  appears  to  con- 
tradict the  previous  assertion  (p.  50)  that  in 
Old  English  "  words  of  native  origin  usually  take 
the  stress  on  the  root  syllable. ' '  Some  modification 
is  obviously  necessary  in  order  to  reconcile  the  e 
two  statements.  The  Middle  English  leveling  of 
the  Old  English  full  inflections  left  (p.  78)  "no 
means"  but  just  as  much  "reason"  as  ever 
for  keeping  up  the  distinction  of  grammatical 
gender.  The  tendency  in  the  Middle  English 
period  to  convert  strong  verbs  into  weak  was 
not  (p.  82)  "  developed  still  further  in  the  Mod- 
ern English  period."  On  the  contrary,  this 
tendency  received  a  check  in  the  later  Middle 
English  period,  with  the  result  that  the  number 
of  originally  strong  verbs  in  the  language  is  no 
smaller  today  than  at  the  close  of  the  Middle 
English  period,  while,  as  Lounsbury  points  out 
(History  of  the  English  Language,  p.  154  and  pp. 
349  ff. ),  examples  are  cot  wanting  in  Modern 
English  of  the  converse  change  from  weak  to 
strong.  The  poetic  kine  might  be  added  (p.  85) 
to  the  list  of  survivals  of  the  old  weak  declension 
in  Modern  English.  For  Da  ealde  men  (p.  95) 
read  Da  ealdan  m$n.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  what 
the  author  means  by  saying  (p.  94)  that  the  un- 
inflected  "  type  forms  "  of  Modern  English  may, 
in  contrast  to  the  inflected  forms  of  Old  English, 
occupy  "any  position"  in  the  sentence.  For, 
as  the  author  himself  recognizes  (p.  300),  the 
absence  of  inflection  and  concord  in  Modern 
English  renders  a  fixed  word  order  more  im- 
perative now  than  formerly.  Thus  in  Old  Eng- 
lish the  verb  might  stand  in  the  inverted,  normal, 
or  transposed  order,  according  to  circumstances, 
but  in  Modern  English  it  generally  occupies 
the  normal  position,  whatever  the  circumstances 
may  be. 

The  author  opens  his  chapter  on  English  Sounds 
with  an  admirably  clear  exposition  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  several  organs  of  speech.  He  then 
proceeds  to  describe  the  processes  by  which  the 
various  English  sounds  are  produced  and  to 
classify  the  vowels  and  consonants.  Since  the  term 


218 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.   7. 


spirant  is  defined  (p.  1 08)  so  as  to  exclude  the  alve- 
olar continuants  and  to  include  the  continuants 
produced  by  "the  teeth  and  lips,"  it  is  not  clear 
why  the  author  should  exclude  (p.  109)  the  labial 
continuant  iv  and  should  include  (p.  108)  s  and 
z,  denned  (p.  109)  as  "alveolar"  continuants. 
Dr,  Krapp  appears  to  the  reviewer  to  assign  undue 
importance  to  imitation  as  a  factor  in  sound 
chauge  (pp.  125  ff. ).  Imitation  can  at  best  explain 
merely  why  sound  changes  when  once  started  will 
continue  to  operate  ;  it  cannot  explain  how  such 
changes  originated.  The  author  ends  his  chapter 
with  a  brief  account  of  spelling  reform,  towards 
which  he  assumes  an  altogether  sane  and  reason- 
able attitude. 

In  his  chapter  on  English  Words  (chap,  v)  the 
author  distinguishes  two  main  processes  in  the 
development  of  the  English  vocabulary  :  (1)  origi- 
nal creation,  including  the  creation  of  new  words 
and  the  adaptation  of  old  words  to  new  uses,  and 
(2)  borrowing  from  other  languages.  Particularly 
worthy  of  remark  is  the  author's  discussion,  ac- 
companied by  numerous  illustrative  quotations 
from  the  literature  of  the  day,  of  the  controversy 
waged  at  the  period  of  the  Renascence  between 
the  supporters  and  the  opponents  of  the  theory  of 
enriching  the  language  by  wholesale  borrowings 
from  foreign  languages.  The  following  minor  cor- 
rections or  amplifications  might  be  made  upon  this 
chapter,  which  is  otherwise  excellent  in  every  way. 
Berth  might  be  added  (p.  186)  to  the  list  of 
derivatives  from  the  verb  bear.  The  second  ele- 
ment in  the  compound  "upshot"  (p.  188)  is  a 
noun,  not  a  "verb."  It  might  well  have  been 
pointed  out  (p.  190)  that  the  second,  even  more 
certainly  than  "the  first  element  of  OE.  ort- 
geard"  (cf.  the  NED.'),  is  cognate  with  Lat. 
hortus.  The  words  fronts  and  backed  (p.  198) 
in  the  sentences  "The  house  fronts  the  street" 
and  ' '  He  backed  the  horse  ' '  are  instances  not  of 
"adjectives"  but  of  nouns  which  have  "become 
verbs. ' '  Whatever  one  may  think  of  didoes,  it  is 
hard  to  see  for  what  reasons  the  slang  words  bam- 
boozle and  cahoots  should  be  spoken  of  (p.  209) 
"  as  suggested  by  the  high-sounding  Latin  vocab- 
ulary." Most  readers  would  not  accept  the  au- 
thor's citation  of  smart  set,  swagger,  tmdsivell  (p. 
210)  as  examples  of  slang  words  which  have 
escaped  the  taint  of  vulgarity  because  employed 


by  "leaders  of  fashion."  These  expressions  are 
le?s  frequently  used  by  leaders  of  fashion  than  by 
others,  and  certainly  carry  with  them  distinctly 
sordid  and  vulgar  connotations.  The  statement 
(p.  217)  that  the  Anglo-Saxons,  after  settling  in 
England,  came  into  "renewed  contact  with  the 
Scandinavians,"  implies  a  previous  contact  of 
which  nothing  is  said.  The  author  does  not  ex- 
plain for  what  reasons  the  use  of  "predicament" 
(p.  281)  in  the  sense  of  "plight"  is  anymore 
subject  to  the  charge  of  "vagueness"  than  plight 
itself  is. 

Dr.  Krapp  devotes  his  final  chapter  on  the 
special  aspects  of  the  English  language  (chap, 
vu)  to  English  Grammar.  The  term  English 
grammar  he  restricts  to  a  sense  virtually  synony- 
mous with  syntax,  as  distinguished  from  the 
broader  use  of  the  terra  to  include  sounds  and 
inflections  as  well.  The  chapter  is  devoted  to  a 
discussion  of  a  variety  of  typical  tendencies  in 
Modern  English  syntax.  The  most  characteristic 
of  these  tendencies  he  attributes  to  the  loss  of  in- 
flection and  to  the  consequent  disposition  to  view 
the  individual  word  as  an  independent  unit  in  the 
sentence.  For  this  reason  the  distinction  between 
the  several  parts  of  speech  is  less  closely  observed 
in  the  English  of  today  than  in  that  of  the  earlier 
and  more  highly  inflected  periods  of  the  language 
and  a  tendency  to  transfer  a  given  word  from  one 
part  of  speech  to  another  manifests  itself  more  fre- 
quently now  than  formerly.  Minor  details  only 
call  for  correction.  It  is  unnecessary  to  repeat 
(p.  289)  the  popular  use  of  /  han't  for  I  have  not 
already  cited  once  before  on  the  preceding  page. 
For  "as  result"  (top  of  p.  291)  read  "as  a 
result."  The  rules  of  Modern  English  orthog- 
raphy require  that  "the  historically  correct  past 
participle"  of  get  should  be  spelt  getten  (with 
two  t's  ;  cf.  gotten)  and  not  geten  (p.  291).  It 
would  appear  better  (p.  292)  to  designate  lay  and 
dived  as  the  historically  correct  rather  than  the 
"conventionally  correct  "  forms  of  the  past  tense 
of  lie  and  dive  respectively.  Though  more  fre- 
quently used  than  laid  and  dove,  these  forms  are 
hardly  employed  with  sufficient  uniformity  to  be 
termed  conventional.  The  statement  (p.  293) 
that  the  use  of  ' '  will  in  the  first  person  and  shall 
in  the  second  and  third"  persons  of  the  future 
tense  of  the  verb  is  "  general!}'  unmistakably 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


219 


determined"  by  the  intention  of  the  speaker  is 
hardly  compatible  with  the  statement  (p.  294) 
that  in  the  use  of  these  auxiliaries  "  the  greatest 
freedom  prevails."  In  the  use  of  these  auxilia- 
ries in  senses  other  than  that  of  the  simple  future 
(which  invariably  requires  shall  in  the  first  person 
and  will  in  the  second  and  third  persons)  it 
appears  not  that  the  greatest  freedom  prevails  but 
rather  that  the  rules,  though  approximately  fixed 
for  a  given  set  of  circumstances,  vary  so  con- 
stantly with  changes  in  the  particular  set  of  cir- 
cumstances that  a  uniform  rule  for  all  cases  is 
impossible.  It  would  be  better  (p.  299)  to  dis- 
tinguish the  form  taxing  in  the  expression  "for 
heavily  taxing  the  people ' '  from  the  infinitive  to  tax 
in  the  expression  ' '  to  heavily  tax  the  people ' '  by 
calling  the  former  a  gerund  or  verbal  noun  rather 
than  an  "infinitive."  The  expression  (p.  302) 
"  the  shortness  of  his  leg  prevented  him  running  " 
does  not,  of  course,  belong  in  a  list  (p.  301)  of 
examples  of  the  verbal  modified  by  a  noun.  In 
the  expression  (p.  309)  "  I walked  two  hours" 
and  "  I  walked  two  miles"  it  is  not  the  nouns 
hours  and  miles  taken  alone  by  themselves  but 
coupled  with  the  numeral  two  that  form  ad- 
verbs ;  otherwise  we  should  have  the  strange  phe- 
nomenon of  an  adverb  modified  by  a  numeral. 
The  word  home  in  the  expression  (p.  310)  "I  am 
going  home"  was  not  originally  a  "locative" 
but  an  accusative  case  used  adverbially  (cf.  Bos- 
worth-Toller,  Anglo-Saxon  Dictionary,  sub  ham'). 
The  so-called  copulative  verbs  (p.  311)  "may  be 
followed"  by  predicate  nouns  as  well  as  "by 
predicate  adjectives,"  as  in  the  example  "She 
looked  a  dark  Madonna,"  cited  below  (p.  312). 
In  the  sentence  (p.  317)  "  I  thank  your  Majesty 
for  the  cordial  reception  you  have  given  us,  and 
which  we  appreciate,"  it  would  appear  more 
natural  to  regard  the  relative  pronoun  which  as 
coordinate  with  a  preceding  relative,  understood 
between  reception  and  you,  than  as  an  instance 
of  "mixed  syntax."  The  full  form  of  the  sen- 
tence would  then  read  "I  thank  your  Majesty 
for  the  cordial  reception  which  you  have  given 
us,  and  which  we  appreciate."  The  word  like 
in  the  sentence  (p.  319)  "  You  are  not  like  to 
find  him  here  "  is  used  as  an  adjective,  not  as  "an 
adverb." 

The  following  typographical  errors  have  been 


discovered  :  Brtiain  (p.  36) ;  Engish  (p.  39) ; 
eb  (p.  319);  omission  of  quantity  in  Old  English 
beon  (p.  73)  ;  cower  (p.  89),  by  the  side  of  low 
on  the  same  page;  eow  (p.  93);  ge  (p.  93). 
For  "following  excellent"  in  the  quotation  from 
Sir  John  Cheke  (p.  245)  read  "folowing  of  other 
excellent." 

NATHANIEL  E.  GRIFFIN. 

Princeton  University. 


Schillers  Wilhelm  Tell.  Edited  with  Introduc- 
tion, Notes,  and  Repetitional  Exercises  by 
BERT  JOHN  Vos,  Professor  of  German  in 
Indiana  University.  Ginn  and  Company,  1911. 

This  is  in  many  respects  the  best  edition  of 
Schiller's  masterpiece  that  has  ever  appeared 
in  America.  The  editor  has  addressed  himself 
deliberately  and  consistently  to  the  modest  tho' 
important  task  of  producing  a  book  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  high  school  and  college  students  of 
German,  who  read  Tell  as  their  first  classic  drama. 
Introduction,  notes,  vocabulary,  and  Fragen  aim, 
therefore,  at  a  clarity  and  simplicity  of  statement 
demanded  by  the  needs  of  the  beginner.  Every 
teacher  of  German  in  American  institutions  should 
hail  as  an  omen  of  better  things  in  our  profession 
the  emphatic  assurance  of  the  editor's  preface  that 
the  Fragen  are  intended  to  ' '  bring  home  anew  to 
teacher  or  pupil  the  cardinal  fact  that  in  all 
modern  language  instruction  the  appeal  should  in 
the  first  instance  be  riot  to  the  eye  but  to  the  ear." 
The  present  writer  shares  with  many  of  his  col- 
leagues the  conviction  that  the  college  and  the 
university  have  been  discreditably  slow  to  recognise 
practically  this  truth  and  to  throw  the  weight  of 
their  influence  in  the  direction  of  a  more  rational 
study  of  foreign  languages  in  harmony  with  this 
principle. 

Of  the  444  pages  of  the  volume,  57  are  devoted 
to  the  introduction,  174  to  the  text  of  the  drama, 
89  to  the  notes,  4  to  the  appendix,  25  to  the 
Fragen,  and  92  to  the  vocabulary. 

Moved  by  the  conviction  that  the  strongest 
appeal  can  be  made  to  the  interest  of  the  student 
of  Schiller  through  the  presentation  of  an  adequate 
amount  of  biographical  detail,  and  that  space, 
often  wasted  in  editions  of  Tell  upon  an  examina- 


220 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


tion  of  the  relation  of  the  historical,  legendary, 
and  poetical  elements  of  the  story  of  the  hero 
archer,  could  thus  be  more  profitably  employed, 
the  editor  has  confined  his  Introduction  in  large 
measure  to  a  sketch  of  Schiller's  life  and  work. 
The  sketch  is  carefully  written  and  presents  within 
small  compass  an  impressive  picture  of  the  tireless 
energy  and  many-sided  activity  of  Schiller's  spirit. 
Such  brief  mention  of  large  topics  leads,  of  course, 
through  necessary  omissions,  to  an  occasional  false 
perspective.  Thus  in  the  present  instance  Don 
Carlos  fails  to  assume  its  true  significance  as  the 
dramatic  preface  of  the  period  of  the  poet's 
dramaturgic  maturity.  Similarly  the  Braui  von 
Messina  is  labeled  ''fate-drama"  in  the  Oedipus 
sense  of  the  word,  with  no  regard  of  recent  studies 
that  show  indubitably  its  closer  relationship  with 
Wallenstein  than  with  the  Greek  drama,  associated 
with  it  by  earlier  critics.  In  spite  of  these  and 
other  minor  defects,  the  introduction  is  skilfully 
constructed  and  well  adapted  in  cooperation  with 
the  notes  "  to  rouse  the  feeling  for  poetry  that 
seems  to  have  become  entirely  dormant  with  so 
many  of  our  young  people. ' ' 

The  notes  are,  on  the  whole,  well  devised  to 
explain  real  difficulties  of  language,  style,  or  poetic 
allusion.  They  do  not  forget,  as  do  so  many  notes 
in  American  text-books,  that  the  commercial  in- 
stinct of  the  publisher  demands  aii  accompanying 
vocabulary,  that  may  reasonably  be  supposed  to 
clear  up  certaiu  elementary  matters  of  form  and 
meaning.  Their  value  is  greatly  enhanced  by 
well  chosen  parallel  quotations  from  English  lit- 
erature. Each  note  is  numbered  according  to 
the  line  of  the  text  to  which  it  primarily  refers. 
Notes  upon  stage-directions  are  starred  and  num- 
bered after  the  lines  which  the  directions  intro- 
duce. A  careful  reading  of  these  notes  suggests 
the  following  list  of  modifications  or  additions  : 

N.  14  should  call  attention  to  the  usual  strong 
inflection  of  the  adjective  after  a  personal  pro- 
noun in  the  accusative. 

N.  15  should  mention  the  archaic  flavor  of  zu 
Berg  (zu  Tal)  when  used  for  the  modern  hinauf 
(herauf}  hinab  (herab). 

N.  40  :  Und  kalt  her  blast  es,  etc.  A  closer 
English  paraphrase  than  that  offered  by  the 
editor,  "  a  cold  Avind  blows  "  would  be,  "a  cold 
blast  comes. ' ' 

N.  108  :  Es  kann  uns  alien  gleiches  ja  begegnen. 


The  meaning  ofja  is  here  not  "  why  at  the  begin- 
ning of  a  clause,"  but  is  approximated  by  the 
English  ' '  you  know  "  in  ' '  The  same  fate  may 
befall  us  all,  you  know. ' '  The  suggestion  of  the 
editor  that  the  word  would  best  be  left  untrans- 
lated here  seems  to  the  reviewer  unfortunate,  for 
the  double  reason  that  it  combines  with  other 
similar  suggestions  in  the  body  of  the  notes  to 
focus  attention  upon  the  text,  as  somethiug  to  be 
primarily  translated,  whereas  the  editor  would 
surely  agree  that  the  thing  of  prime  importance 
for  the  learner  is  to  understand  the  text  without 
translation  ;  and  also  that  it  encourages  the  false 
view  that  the  word  corresponds  to  no  form  of 
English  expression. 

N.  176  :  beilegen  means  rather  lay  to  (bestir 
one's  self)  than  lay  on. 

N.  229  is  quite  misleading.  Dies  Haus,  Herr 
Vogt,  ist  meines  JETerrn,  des  Kaisers,  und  Eures, 
und  mein  Lehn  does  not  mean,  as  translated  by 
the  editor  :  ' '  This  house  belongs  to  my  lord  the 
Emperor,  and  (in  your  capacity  as  the  Emperor's 
representative)  is  yours,  and  is  my  fief."  The 
remark,  '  'Eures  :  notice  the  form  ;  not  Euer.  It 
can  refer  only  to  ITaus,"  is,  therefore,  entirely 
inapposite.  The  meaning  of  the  passage  is  clearly  , 
' '  This  house  belongs  to  my  lord  and  your  lord  the 
Emperor,  and  is  my  fief."  This  reply  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  expressions  of  the  frankness 
and  boldness  of  Stauffacher's  character  contained 
in  the  whole  play.  Hence  the  further  remark  of 
the  editor, ' '  The  addition  of  und  Eures,  which  was 
really  uncalled  for,  shows  StaufFacher's  anxiety 
to  appease  Gessler, ' '  is  quite  aside  of  the  mark. 

N.  254  :  The  indication  of  the  pronunciation  of 
y  in  Schwyz,  already  given  in  the  preliminary 
part  of  N.  1,  is  here  repeated. 

N.  255  :  A  clearer  statement  would  be,  After 
negative  clauses  sondern  affirms  the  opposite  of 
the  preceding  denial ;  aber  affirms  what  remains 
untouched  by  the  preceding  restriction. 

N.  286  should  call  attention  to  the  dialectic  and 
colloquial  nature  of  the  unhistorical  form,  eurer 
(gen.  of  t/w),  used  by  Schiller  here  and  repeatedly 
in  the  text  of  the  drama. 

N.  473  :  Fine,  as  distinguished  from  punish- 
ment in  general  (Strafe),  is  Geldstrafe. 

N.  631  should  indicate  the  difference  between 
the  participial  adjectives,  gesinnt  and  gesonnen. 

N.  765,  touching  the  drinking  term,  Ich  bring' s 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


221 


Each,  might  well  have  included  the  parallel 
student  slang,  Ich  komme  Each  ioas  (eincn  gan- 
zen,  riiif-H  h'dben,  meine  Blume,  etc.). 

N.  772  should  mention  that  gemessen  (Int  dciner 
Jugend  die  Zeit  so  karg  gemessen  ?*)  is  here  the 
poetical  form  for  the  usual  prose  form,  zugemesscn. 

N.  982,  which  modernises  the  expression,  laset 
sick  nic/it  lang  envarten,  should  give  the  adverb 
of  time  the  more  usual  form,  lange. 

N.  1006  proposes  the  scansion,  In  den  einsamen 
Scnnhutten  kehrt'  ich  ein  ;  the  following  substi- 
tute seems  to  the  present  writer  more  natural  :  In 
doi  cinsdmcn  Seiinhutten  kehrt'  ich  ein,  which 
expresses  through  the  contiguous  stressed  syllables 
the  solitariness  of  the  abodes  thus  visited. 

N.  1444  :  The  editor  finds  these  words  of 
Rosselmaun  incongruous  with  the  remark  of 
Walter  Fiirst  (1.  1443).  Chairman  Reding  had 
urged  haste  (1.  1441)  to  avoid  discovery  by  the 
light  of  day,  which  was  just  kindling  the  moun- 
tain-tops, whereat  Fiiret  had  reminded  them  that 
the  valley  folk,  whom  they  might  wish  to  elude, 
would  sleep  quietly  some  time  longer  as  the  dawn 
descended  but  gradually  to  them  from  the  high 
Alps.  With  this  reminder  the  words  of  Rossel- 
mann,  "  By  this  light,  which  greets  us  before  all 
the  people  who  dwell  below  us  and  breathe  with 
difficulty  the  murky  air  of  towns,  let  us  swear  the 
oath  of  the  new  federation,"  seem  quite  in 
harmony. 

N.  1567  might  appropriately  contain  as  a 
familiar  parallel  to  kein  armer  Laid  the  phrase, 
kein  Sterbenswort  (-u'ortchen~). 

N.  1821  suggests  as  scansion  of  the  half-line  : 
Fort,  fort  ins  Gefanguis,  for  which  the  alternative  : 
Fort,  fort  ins  Gefangnis  seems  to  the  reviewer 
more  natural  (Cf.  comment  upon  N.  1006). 

N.  1903  recommends  the  omission  of  ja  in  the 
translation  of  :  Ei,  Tell,  du  bist  ja  plotzlich  so 
besonnen  !  "If  El  did  not  precede  it  could  be 
rendered,  '  Why,  Tell,  you  are. '  '  Referring  to 
what  was  said  concerning  Note  108,  attention 
should  here  be  called  to  the  fact  that  Gessler  is, 
in  this  sneering  use  of  the  word,  besonnen,  taunt- 
ing Tell  with  his  own  disclaimer  to  Besonnenheit 
(1.  1872  :  War'  ich  besonnen,  hiess'  ich  nicht  der 
Tell}.  It  is  easy  to  hear  him  saying,  therefore, 
"Why,  Tell,  you  are  so  circumspect  all  of  a 
sudden,  you  see"  (contrary  to  what  you  said  a 
moment  ago),  and  this  is  the  shade  of  meaning 
conveyed  by  the  participle,  ja. 


N.  3264  explains  the  word  ein  in  the  sentence, 
So  zieht  dein  Enkel  ein  auf  deincs  Rciches  Boden, 
as  equivalent  to  einher,  '  wanders  along ' ;  the 
usual  meaning  of  einziehen-—fo  enter,  to  make 
one's  entrance,  seems,  however,  quite  in  accord 
with  the  bitterness  of  spirit  that  prompts  the 
words  of  the  speaker,  ' '  Thus  thy  grandson  makes 
his  entrance  upon  the  soil  of  thy  realm  !  " 

The  Appendix  presents  in  modernised  form  a) 
the  story  of  Baumgarten  and  6)  that  of  Tell's 
escape,  as  told  by  Tschudi  in  his  Swiss  Chronicle, 
together  with  passages  from  Shakespeare's  Julius 
Ccesar,  to  show  Gertrude's  resemblance  to  Portia. 

The  Fragen  are  intended  by  their  substance 
and  form  to  stimulate  interest  in  and  to  further 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  details  of  the 
action  of  the  drama  and  are,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  suggestive  rather  than  exhaustive.  They 
seem  to  the  reviewer  for  the  most  part  admirably 
chosen  for  this  purpose.  In  the  hands  of  a  skilful 
teacher  they  will  prove  a  valuable  means  to  sup- 
plement the  oral  quiz  of  the  class-room  by  written 
exercises  in  German.  The  questions  are  based 
directly  upon  the  text  of  the  play  and  are  in  some 
cases  accompanied  by  answers  or  by  a  specific 
indication  of  the  line  of  the  text  that  suggests  the 
answer.  A  few  observations,  touching  the  form 
or  substance  of  some  of  these  Fragen,  may  be  in 
place  :  these  observations  follow  the  consecutive 
numbering  of  the  Fragen  themselves  under  the 
sub-divisions  of  the  drama  (Act  and  Scene) : 

Apparently  through  inadvertence  a  few  double 
questions  have  crept  into  the  list.  Such  are  :  I, 
3,  11  ;  I,  4,  11  ;  II,  2,  69  and  109  ;  IV,  3,  48. 

I,  1,  12  :  More  idiomatic  than  Welche  sind  die 
gewohnlichen  Formen,  etc.?  is  Welches  s.  d.  g.  F., 
etc.? 

I,  1,  40  :  Was  sagt  Ruodi,  ivogegen  konne  er 
nicht  ttteuernl  sounds  awkward  for  the  more 
natural  German  question,  Wogegen  behauptet 
Ruodi  nicht  steuern  za  konnen  ? 

I,  1,  51  :  Warum  schamt  sich  Ruodi  nicht  einzu- 
gestehcn,  dass  er  #ieh  gefiirchfet  hat  vor  dem,  was 
Tell gewagt  hatt  The  repetition  of  the  auxiliary 
hat  is  disturbing.  It  might  well  be  avoided 
either  by  suppressing  the  second  hat  or  by  sub- 
stituting for  the  first  hat  the  form  habe  of  indirect 
discourse. 

I,  2,  6  :  The  question,  Wiefindet  ihn  Gertrudt 
is  far  from  suggesting  the  answer  given  in  the 
accompanying  parenthesis,  Sie  findct  ihn  ernst. 


222 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


For  Wie  seems  at  first  blush  to  inquire  for  the 
manner  of  the  discovery  and  not  for  the  condition 
of  the  discovered  person.  The  question  is  too 
terse  and  should  be  made  more  explicit,  as,  for 
instance,  Imvasfur  einer  Gemutsstimmung  (-ver- 
fassung,  -zustand}  findet  ihn  Gertrud  ? 

I,  2,  7  :  Worm  besteht  Stauffachers  Eeichtumt 
seems  to  inquire  for  the  concrete  ingredients  of 
the  man's  wealth,  e.  g.,  full  barns,  cattle,  horses, 
his  handsome  dwelling,  etc.  The  introductory 
word  should  in  this  case  be  Wbraual 

I,  2,  29  :  Was  sagt  Gertrud,  welche  Wcihl  stehe 
ihr  auch  im  dussersten  Falle  noch  offen  ?  is  objec- 
tionable for  the  same  reason  as  I,  1,  40.  A  better 
form  would  be,  Welche  Wahl,  meint  Gertrud,  s.  i, 
a.  i.  a.  F.  n.  o.? 

I,  3,  3  :  Welche  Personen  sehen  wir  in  Tdtig- 
keit?  In  Tdtigkeit,  commonly  applied  to  machines 
(like  the  English  in  motion}  and  less  frequently 
to  persons,  is  less  natural  in  this  connection  than 
an  der  Arbeit. 

I,  3,  21  :  Wo  wurden  die  schweizerischen  Lehen 
gegeben  ?  It  is  idiomatic  German  to  say,  Etwas 
wird  einem  zu  Lehen  gegeben  ;  but  it  is  customary 
to  say,  Ein  Lehen  wird  einem  verjiehen  (not 
gegeben} ;  a  better  form  of  the  question  would  be, 
therefore,  Wo  w.  d.  s.  L.  verliehen  (vergeben}1 

I,  4,  36  :  Welche  zwei  hohen  Berge  sind  hier 
genannt  f  As  the  words  of  Melchtal  (628)  are 
here  referred  to,  the  real  present  passive  with 
werden  is  more  appropriate  than  the  pseudo-passive 
with  sind. 

I,  4,  39  :  Welche  Waffen  hatten  die  Schweizer 
in  Tells  Zeit  ?  The  last  three  words  sound 
unusual  for  the  idiomatic  zu  Lebzeiten  Tells. 

I,  4,  71  :    Was  sagt  Melchtal,  wohin  sollen  die 
Schiveizer  wallen  f     This  might  be  more  idiomati- 
cally phrased  as  follows  :    Wohin,  meint  M.,  dass 
die  S.  wallen  sollten  (wurden)  f 

II,  2,  28  :  Warum  furchten  sie  dieselben  (i.  e., 
die  Festen}  ?  sounds  stiff  and  official  for  W.  f.  sie 
sie? 

III,  3,  46  :  Was  droht  der  Landvogt  dem  Tell  f 
stands  here  instead  of  the  more  explicit  Was  d.  d. 
L.  d.  T.  an? 

III,  3,  68  :  Allein  is  more  rhythmic  than  nur 
in  the  question,  Werallein  (nur}  darf  Waffen  trag en? 

IV,  1,    21  :    Instead   of    Woran   erkennt   der 
Knabe   es   (i.   e.,  das  Schi/}  ?  the   word-order, 

Woran  e.  es  d.  K  /  is  stylistically  preferable. 


IV,  1,  29  :  Was  tut  er  in  der  Mitte  derselben 
(i.  e.,  der  Szene}  ?  In  place  of  the  last  four 
words,  the  words  mitten  drauf  (i.  e.,  mitten  auf 
der  Buhne}  would  be  equally  clear  and  less 
suggestive  of  the  documentary  style. 

IV,  2,  2  :  War  der  Schauplatz  dort  schon 
einmalf  is  an  infelicitous  form  of  the  question, 
first,  because  it  calls  merely  for  a  reply  with  Ja  or 
Nein,  and  also  because  it  is  unidiomatic  German. 
Better,  therefore,  than  the  grammatically  correct 
Erscheint  dieser  Schauplatz  zum  ersten  Male  hier  ? 
would  be,  for  instance,  Wo  Jcommt  sonst  im  Drama 
derselbe  Schauplatz  vor  f 

IV,  2,  9  :  Was  sagt  Walter  Filrst,  warum  bonne 
er  sie  nicht  trosten  ?  is  as  unsatisfactory  as  IV,  1, 
40,  already  mentioned,  and  might  well  be  changed 
into  Warum  meint  W.  F.  sie  niclt  trosten  zu 
konnen  ? 

IV,  2,  26  :  werde  of  indirect  discourse  should 
be  substituted  for  uird. 

IV,  2,  30  :  Wie  viele  sind  schon  im  Geheimnis  ? 
is  an  Anglicism  for  Wie  viele  wissen  schon  darum  f 
or  Wie  viele  sind  schon  ins  Geheimnis  gezogen 
(eingeweiht}  ? 

IV,  2,  32  :  read  konne  for  Teann  (cf.  IV,  2,  26), 
IV,  3,  46  :  For  Was  rat  Stussi  ihm  ?  read  Was 
rat  ihm  Stussi  1  (cf.  IV,  1,  21). 

IV,  3,  67  :  Woruber  geht  eigentlich  der  Streitt 
sounds  like  an  unidiomatic  blend  of  Wor  auf  geht 
der  Streifi  and  Woruber  streiten  sie  sicht  The 
meaning  is  Worum  handelt  es  sich  eigentlich  bei 
diesem  Streit  ? 

IV,  3,  87  :  For  id   read   sei   (cf.   IV,  2,  26 
and  32). 

V,  2,  32:  For  Welchen   Eat  gibt    Tell  ihml 
read  the   more   rhythmic  Welchen  Eat  gibt  ihm 


A  very  important  and  attractive  feature  of  the 
book  is  the  series  of  twelve  excellent  photographic 
reproductions,  including  the  countenance  of  Schil- 
ler, as  presented  in  the  Dannecker  bust,  and  the 
most  memorable  spots  in  Switzerland  mentioned 
in  the  play.  This  series  is  effectively  supple- 
mented by  three  full-page  maps,  showing  the 
pertinent  geographical  outlines  of  Central  Ger- 
many, the  Forest  Cantons,  and  Central  Switzer- 
land, A  list  of  bibliographical  references  is  given 
on  pages  lii-lvi,  sure  to  prove  useful  to  teacher 
and  pupil.  Very  welcome,  too,  is  the  list  of 
Familiar  Sayings  from  Tell  on  the  last  two  pages 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


223 


of  the   Introduction.     The    typography  is  prac- 
tically errorless. 

The  final  word  should  be  one  of  praise. 
Admiration  for  the  plan  of  the  book  and  for  the 
main  features  of  its  execution  have  prompted  the 
foregoing  honest  attempt  to  suggest  minor  im- 
provements for  a  future  edition. 

STARR  WILLARD  CUTTING. 

The  University  of  Chicago. 


Le  Cousin  Pons,  par  Honor  e  de  Balzac,  edited 
with  introduction,  notes  and  questionnaire, 
by  HUGO  PAUL  THIEME.  Ann  Arbor, 
George  Wnhr,  1911.  12  mo.,  xliv  -f-  275  pp. 

Not  too  much  Balzac  literature  is  available 
for  school  use,  hence  no  one  will  object  to  a 
good  edition  of  a  work  so  characteristic  of  the 
novelist's  talent  as  is  the  present  one.  The 
publisher  is  to  be  congratulated  on  the  material 
make-up  of  the  neat  little  volume:  the  paper 
is  good,  the  type  clear,  and  the  binding 
tasteful. 

A  rather  elaborate  introduction,  replete  with 
valuable  bibliographical  information,  will  be 
more  useful  to  the  teacher  than  to  the  students ; 
the  latter  will  be  left  somewhat  at  sea  owing  to 
the  bewildering  confusion  of  contradictory 
opinions  quoted.  Some  of  the  critics  men- 
tioned are  hardly  '  massgebend,'  and  therefore 
their  often  extreme  views  are  of  little  import- 
ance. The  average  pupil  needs  more  definite 
information,  and  by  sifting  the  best  criticisms, 
this  may  be  given  without  danger  of  going  far 
wrong.  A  few  of  the  editor's  own  statements 
may  be  questioned ;  e.  g.,  p.  xi,  "  He  knew 
great  ladies  .  .  .  from  whom  he  derived  much 
of  the  inexhaustible  instruction  in  the  beau 
monde."  It  is  hard  not  to  agree  with  Fa- 
guet : x  Son  gout  deplorable  de  faire  des  por- 
traits de  grandes  dames,  etc.  On  p.  xvii  the 
editor  states:  " When  we  realize  that  all  his 
characters  are  based  on  what  he  has  seen 
.  .  .  ;  The  statement  is  extreme;  Vautrin 
and  Rastignac,  to  quote  only  two  well-known 
characters,  are  impossible  in  real  life,  and  how- 
ever well  and  consistently  they  are  worked  out, 

1  Etudes  sur  le  XIXe  sKcle,  p.  422. 


they  are  made  de  chic. — P.  viii :  "  Balzac  died 
.  .  .  three  months  after  his  marriage."  Bal- 
zac married  March  14,  1850,  arrived  in  Paris 
at  the  end  of  May,  and  died  August  18,  five 
months  after  his  marriage. — P.  xxiv :  "  These 
[Balzac's]  characters,  some  2000  in  all  ... " 
Seche  and  Bertaut  in  their  recent  biography 
state:  Pour  dresser  en  pied  une  foule  de  types 
si  nombreux  qu'on  a  pu  editer  un  repertoire 
alphabetique  de  5000  personnages  .  .  . 2 — P. 
xxv :  "  Around  the  village  doctor  is  centered 
much  of  the  action  ...  as  in  ...  Cousin 
Pons."  There  is  no  village  doctor  in  Cousin 
Pons. 

TEXT.  The  edition  is  slightly  abridged  and 
the  omissions  are  justified.  In  several  in- 
stances, however,  more  care  in  establishing  the 
connection  would  seem  desirable.  Thus  on  p. 
4,  1.  1,  triple  gilet  is  unintelligible  unless  the 
reader  refers  to  the  omitted  part :  Pons  wore  a 
waistcoat  of  black  cloth  over  a  white  one  and 
a  sweater  underneath  both. — P.  22,  11.  18  ff. 
Pons  avait  refuse  cc  bonheur  (viz.,  of  marrying 
Madeleine,  the  chamber  -maid)  .  .  .  Aussi 
voulait-elle  devcnir  la  cousine  de  scs  maitres. 
This  aussi, '  therefore,'  is  here  impossible.  The 
original  reads:  Aussi  .  .  .  jouait-elle  les  plus 
mcchants  tours  au  pauvre  musicien. — P.  32,  11. 
16-18:  Enigmatic  because  of  an  omission. — 
P.  38,  1.  7:  En  outre  makes  no  sense,  again 
because  of  an  omission. — P.  208,  1.  10:  En  ce 
moment  arrive  I'infatigable  courtier  de  la 
maison  Sonet  .  .  .  ;  add:  et  compagnie,  en- 
trepreneurs de  pompes  funebres,  else  we  are 
in  the  dark  as  to  this  individual. — P.  213,  11. 
1-3 :  The  deviation  from  the  original,  appar- 
ently here  due  to  the  printer,  makes  this 
passage  unintelligible.3 

*I  have  not  counted  the  names  as  given  in  Cerfberr 
and  Christophe,  Repertoire  de  la  Comedie  humaine  (Cal- 
mann  LeVy,  1893). 

3  Typographical  errors  have  been  noted  at  the  follow- 
ing places :  page  4,  1.  21  ;  9,  11 ;  14,  30  ;  20,  30  ;  28, 
3  (read  jolie);  28,  11  ;  31,  5 ;  41,  4 ;  46,  6  ;  80,  26 
(grigous)  ;  95,  31  (add  pas)  ;  103,  23  (tout)  ;  117,  11 
(note  missing);  120,  22;  122,  22;  124,  20;  128,  11; 
178,  5 ;  184,  8  ;  196,  10 ;  235,  27  (atsigne).  The  ces  of 
p.  8,  1.  15,  should  evidently  be  ses,  tho  ces  stands  also  in 
the  Calmann  Le>y  edition.  Questionnaire,  263,  93-94  ; 
263,  109. 


224 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


NOTES.  It  is  impossible  to  lay  down  any 
hard  and  fast  rule  as  to  what  word  or  expres- 
sion deserves  or  does  not  deserve  a  note.  In 
a  text  without  vocabulary  a  sensible  working 
rule  seems  to  be  that  every  word  or  special  use 
of  a  word,  not  found  in  the  ordinary  school 
dictionary,  every  grammatical  peculiarity  not 
found  in  the  ordinary  school  grammar,  rare 
constructions,  popular  expressions,  puns,  slang, 
historical  or  literary  references,  should  be 
briefly  explained.4 

Notes  or  additional  explanations  are  needed 
in  the  following  cases: 

P.  1,  1.  4  le  nez  a  la  piste,  about  the  same 
as  le  nez  au  vent; — 1.  26  un  mot  here  un  Ion 
mot,   une   reparlie. — P.    2,   1.    10   une   fidelite 
quand    ineme,    a    faithfulness    despite    every- 
thing;— 1.  19  spencer  couleur  noisette; — 1.  22 
The  grammatical  note  is  misleading;  the  con- 
ditional contrary  to  fact  may  be  followed  by 
indicative    or    subjunctive   only    in    compound 
tenses. — P.  3,  1.  5  drolatique.     Mention  should 
be   made   that  the   word   was   modernized,   or 
was   given   additional    popularity   by   Balzac's 
Contes  drolatiqucs; — 1.   17  nez  a  la  don  Qui- 
chotte; — 1.  18  Hoc  erratique. — P.  5,  1.  16  thea- 
tre   des    boulevards. — P.    6,    1.    13    dcs   succes 
aupres  dcs  fcmmcs  selon   la  phrase   consacrce 
en  1809.     A  note  might  state  that  this  expres- 
sion is  still  in  common  use; — 1.  23  II  n'est  pas 
de  pays.     II  n'est  is  less  common  than  il  n'y 
a,  and  more  common  than  is  il  est  for  il  y  a. — 
P.  8,  1.  4  pate  tendre; — 1.  20  bricabracologie, 
neologism,  coined  or  at  least  made  popular  by 
Balzac,  as  are  also  bricabracomanie,  bricabraquie, 
bricabracois,etc. — P.  10,1.3  sept  peches  capitaux 
is  not  clear  to  all  students; — 1.  7  gueule  fine, 
vulgar  for  bouche-fine  or  gourmet; — 1.  19  tou- 
cliait   le   forte.     To  the  existing  note  should 
be  added  that  this  is  no  longer  in  use,  but  is 
replaced  by  toucher  le  piano  and  more  com- 
monly jouer  du  piano. — P.  11,  1.  8  pique-assi- 
ette.     Note    says    '  nutcracker '    or    '  parasite.' 
I  do  not  know  'nutcracker'  with  this  mean- 
ing; better  'sponger.' — P.  12,  11.  16-17  on  ne 
lui  tenait  plus  compte  de  rien  should  be  ex- 
plained.— P.  13,  1.  2  baton  de  vieillesse.     Few 
students  will   know  the  meaning  of  this  ex- 

4  In  testing  the  notes  I  have  made  use  of  two  dic- 
tionaries that  are,  I  imagine,  fairly  representative  :  the 
little  Gasc  (Holt  and  Co.),  and  Passy  and  Hempl 
(Hinds,  Noble  and  Eldredge). 


pression  formed  after  baton  de  marechal,  the 
highest  rank  in  the  army  and,  metaphorically, 
in  any  profession.     When  a  man  gets  a  pen- 
sion or  a  decoration  for  long  and  honorable 
service,  he  gets  what  is  familiarly  and  some- 
what ironically  called  le  baton  de  vieillesse  or 
consolation  prize  for  old  age; — 1.  20  synthese, 
not  obvious  to  all  students. — P.  14,  1.  1  demon- 
strateur,   used   here   as  synonyme   for   profes- 
seur; — 1.  10  epicier,  a  favorite  epithet  among 
romanticists  meaning  c  philistine,'  equivalent  to 
the  English  'shopkeeper.' — P.  15,  1.  1  Richler 
has  a  note  but  not  Hoffman,  whose  Marchen 
are    perhaps    better    known    than    his    name. 
Balzac   refers   to  them  as  "  griseries "  which, 
used  metaphorically  as  here,  is  not  found  in 
the  dictionaries; — 1.  19  le  temps  que  SchmucJce 
mettait  a;  this  meaning  of  mettre  is  not  given 
in  all  dictionaries. — P.  16,  1.  31  casse-noisettes, 
used  frequently  in  the  course  of  the  book,  is 
nowhere  explained;  it  is  a  popular  expression 
meaning  about  the  same  as  '  ugly  old  fellows.' 
Webster  gives  for  Eng.   'nut-cracker':  sharp 
angular  nose   and  chin;   the  same  facial   de- 
formity in  many  old  people  gav^  probably  rise 
to  the  French  term. — P.  17,  1.  10  vers  les  sept 
hcures: — 1.   21   tolerance  is  not  quite  clear. — 
P.  18,  1.  8  cor  anglais,  instrument  little  known 
to  most  students  and  quite  different  from  the 
French  horn ;  it  belongs  to  the  oboe  class ; — 1.  20 
encore; — 1.  28  troubadour  is  here  used  adjec- 
tively  and  means  '  galant/ — P.  19,  1.  20  conseil 
general  des  manufactures. — P.  20,  1.  6  Et  Pons 
de  venir  a  la  queue.     The  note  says :  '  follow- 
ing in  the  wake ' ;  this  infinitive  with  de  means 
the  same  as  se  mit  a,  s'cmpressa  de; — 1.   13 
pair  de  France; — 11.  22-23  droit  de  fourchette, 
neologism    formed   after    droit    de    cite,    droit 
d'asile  and  others  of  the  same  order; — 1.   27 
sieur  Thirion,  huissier;  both  slew  and  huissier 
should  be  explained. — P.  21,  1.  21  substituls; — 
1.    28    branche    cadette;   students   will   hardly 
know  that  the  royal  younger  branch  is  meant 
here. — P.  24,  1.  27  pour  laver  noire  linge  en- 
semble.    It  would  be  worth  while  to  state  that 
this  is  an  application  of  the  saying :  II  faut 
lavcr  son  linge  sale  en  famille; — 1.  28  faire  la 
guerre   a   vos   depens   means   'to  spend   your 
money   needlessly/   and   is   not  found  in  the 
two  dictionaries  consulted. — P.   25,  1.   7  Dire 
a  un  riche:  "  Vous  etes  pauvre"  c'est  dire  a 
I'archeveque  de   Grenade  que  ses  homelies  ne 
valent  rien.     One  must  have  read  Gil  Bias  to 
recognize  the  allusion. — P.  27,  1.  11  chit!  chit! 
equivalent  to  the  modern  pst!  interjection  used 
to  call  attention  to  oneself,  when  calling  aloud 
is  forbidden  or  not  advisable; — 1.  27  c'est  a  se 


November,  191  l.J 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


225 


mctlre  a  genoux  means  '  fit  to  kneel  before,' 
and  should  be  translated  in  the  notes. — P.  28, 
1.   26   On   pent   exploiter   cela,   apparently   by 
making   reproductions  of   the   model. — P.   21), 
1.  17  un  chef-d'oeuvre   double  d'un  Nonnattd 
means    a    masterpiece    armor-plated    by    the 
shrewdness  of  a  Norman. — P.   31,   1.   5   cour 
rot/ale  dc  Paris  is  not  Hie  .same  as  '  royal  court ' 
and  should  be  explained;  likewise  1.  9  dynastic 
nouvelle,  and  1.  10  commandeur,  which  is  not 
the  same  as  chevalier;  only  the  latter  wears 
the  red  ribbon. — P.  32,  1.  1  die  nous  reste  sur 
les  bras,  means  'on  our  hands'; — 11.  5-6  restce 
si  longtemps  sur  pied; vulgar  for : 'waiting  to  be 
married' ;  figure  taken  from  the  habit  of  certain 
fowl ;  cf .  faire  le  pied  de  grue,  wait  a  long  time 
standing; — 1.   21   conseillcr  a  la  cour,  and  1. 
24  refcrendaire  need  notes; — 1.  27  duchesse  du 
bal  Mabille.     It  should  be  stated  that  this  is 
no  duchess  at  all. — P.  40,  1.  8  Roi  des  Fran- 
quis;  under  the  old  regime  the  king's  title  was 
Roi  de  France; — 1.  10  Pour  eux  le  lait  sortait 
pur  de  la  boite.     Students  are  not  apt  to  be 
acquainted  with  the  slang  term  boite  au  lait 
(possibly  formed  after  boite  aux  lettres)   and 
meaning    breast. — P.    41,    1.    12    pare.     Since 
Mmc   Cibot's   linguistic  peculiarities   are  gen- 
erally elucidated,  a  note  might  state  that  pare 
in  le  diner  est  pare  is  corrupt  for  prepare. — 
P.  44,  1.  24  se  frottait  les  mains  a  s'emporter 
1'epiderme  means  '  rubbed  his  hands  as  though 
he  were  bent  upon  skinning  them.' — P.  47,  1. 
15   siege   magistral,   conductor's   seat. — P.    52, 
1.  6  en  droit  et  en  fait,  legal  term  meaning  '  in 
law  and  in  practice.' — P.  56,  1.  2  Ah!  dit  le 
notaire   d'un   air  fin,    on  ne   court   pas   deux 
siecles  a   la  fois.     I   fear  that  students   will 
puzzle  over  this,  failing  to  see  that  the  notary 
is  trying  to  make  a  very  bad  pun  on  the  prov- 
erb: II  ne  faut  pas  courir  deux  lievres  a  la 
fois  =  one  should  not  have  too  many  irons  in 
the  fire,  or  try  to  sit  on  two  stools  at  once; — 
1.  20  signer  au  contrat,  is  not  the  same   as 
signer  un  contrat. — P.  57,  1.  2  Ce  qui  s'etait  bu 
de  vin   deserves  a  short  note. — P.    53,   1.   22 
philosophant  a  perte   de  raison  formed  after 
a  perte  de  vue,  and  meaning  ad  infinitum  or 
'  world  without  end.' — P.  62,  1.  19  se  port  a  fort 
pour. — P.  63,  1.  6  lettres  de  naturalite.     The 
modern    term    is    generally    naturalisation; — 
1.  12  flotte  bleue. — P.  73,  1.  4  madame  la  presi- 
dente  y  porte  les  .  .  .  vous  savez  quoi.     I  am 
not  sure  that  that  famous  "  average  student " 
would  know  enough  to  supply  culottes. — P.  93, 
1.    4    I'Esprit    me    tripote    Id    dans    I'estomac, 
means  'the  Spirit  makes  me  feel  queer  in  the 
stomach ' ;  tripoter  not  in  dictionaries  with  this 


. — P.  94,  1.  2  la  poule  noire  piquait. 
Picontil  is  the  more  correct  form. — P.  100,  1. 
21  il  faut  en  prcndre  et  en  laisser,  'one  must 
not  overdo  things.' — P.  105,  1.  9  en  voild  un 
de  cceur.  This  do  should  be  explained. — P. 

107,  1.  5  c'est  la  bonne  bete  du  bon  Dieu,  popu- 
lar meaning,  'foolish  creature';  has  nothing 
to  do  with  bete  a  bon  Dieu  =  lady  bug. — P. 

108,  1.   4   C'est   comme   la  langue,   disait   cet 
ancien  acteur.     Is  it  not  Socrates  to  whom  this 
saying  about  the  tongue  being  the  best  and  the 
worst  thing,  is  attributed? — 1.  16  un  peu  fort 
de  cafe,  cela!    No  note  to  this  slang  saying, 
liigaud   (Diet,  d'argot  moderne)   says:  "Fort 
de  cafe,  trcs  fort,  peu  supportable.     Miserable 
jeu  de  mots  comme  on  en  commettait  tant  il  y 
a  quelques  annees;  de  la  meme  famille  que: 
Elle  est  bonne  .  .  .  d'enfants,  pour  dire  qu'une 
chose  est  amusante." — P.  112,  1.  4  crainte  qu'il 
ne  touche,  ungrammatical  for  de  crainte  qu'il, 
etc.— P.  114,  1.  14  escarboucles.— P.  117,  1.  15 
rapport   a,   incorrect    but   much   used    by   the 
illiterate  for  a  propos  dc,  concerning;  cf.  also 
p.  118,  1.  26,  and  p.  123,  1.  17.— P.  120,  1.  4 
Quelle  bete  de  loi!     Same  as  Quelle  loi  bete, 
stupide. — P.   125,  1.   11   I' argent   de  scs  ports 
de    lettres.     Puzzling    to    the   students    unless 
they  know  that  before  the  introduction  of  the 
postage  stamp    (1849  in  France)    the  receiver 
had  to  pay  the  postage  of  a  letter; — 1.  17  nous 
n'avons  pas  un  Hard  a  qui  que  cc  soit  might 
be  translated  in  the  notes. — P.  128,  1.  21  vieux 
de  la  vieille,  a  veteran  of  the  old  guard. — P. 
130,  1.  2  une  tete  de  bois,  face  not  betraying 
any  emotion  or  idea;  cf.  trouvcr  figure  de  bois, 
find  the  door  closed. — P.   153,  1.   19   et  vous 
vous   croyez   capable   de   faire   vos   notes  .  .  . 
mais  vous  ne  feriez  pas  seulcment  les  miennes. 
A  pun;  the  first  note  means  musical  notes,  the 
second  means  bills. — P.  168,  1.  14  Allez-vous 

.  m'ostiner  encore?  Even  obstiner  would  be  in- 
correct; the  correct  form  would  be:  allez-vous 
vous  obstiner  encore? — P.  210,  1.  25  Quel  dc- 
rorant!  A  devorant  is  a  member  of  a  devoir 
or  laborer's  association.  Hardly  if  at  all  used 
to-day; — 1.  28  Aimait-il  sa  femme!  Equiva- 
lent to:  Comme  il  aimait,  etc. — P.  215,  1.  25 
vous  aurez  votre  debit  de  tabac.  Note  should 
state  that  the  sale  of  tobacco  is  a  government 
monopoly,  that  the  debits  or  bureaux  de  tabac 
are  run  by  agents,  often  women,  and  often 
awarded  by  politicians. — P.  221,  1.  21  assigner 
en  re  fere  .  .  .  pour  voir  dire.  The  expression 
assigner  en  rcfcrc  means  '  to  obtain  a  tempo- 
rary injunction  in  urgent  cases';  voir  dire,  legal 
term  for  'obtain  a  decision.' — P.  227,  1.  12 
Ce  n'est  pas  la  mort  d'un  liomme,  about  the 


226 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  1. 


same  as  ce  nest  pas  la  mer  a  boire. — P.  230, 
1.  16  c'cst  pis  qu'un  fils  de  famille,  '  he  is  worse 
than  spoiled  millionaire's  sons.' — P.  241,  1.  20 
cette  histoire  .  .  .  superposee  a  la  precedents 
dont  elle  est  la  sceur  jumelle.  Unintelligible 
for  him  who  has  not  read  la  Cousine  Bette, 
which  together  with  le  Cousin  Pans  forms  les 
Parents  Pauvres. — P.  242,  11.  12-13  drogueries 
.  .  .  drogues.  This  is  a  play  on  words.  Po- 
pinot  has  made  his  money  in  the  drug  business 
(drogueries)  and  now  he  says  jokingly  that  he 
continues  to  deal  in  drogues,  worthless  pictures 
and  bric-a-brac. 

P.  3,  note  5  should  read:  'could  not  detect 
the  framework  in  it'  (the  face). — P.  13,  note 

1.  I  have  my  doubts  as  to  the  accuracy  of  the 
statement  that  Balzac  seems  to  use  the  sub- 
junctive more  frequently  than  any  writer  of 
his  time.     The  rules  for  the  use  of  the  sub- 
junctive are  fairly  well   denned,   and   do   not 
leave  overmuch  latitude. — P.  27,  1.  16  reads: 
Qu'avez-vous    de    nouveau,    papa    Monistrol? 
Avez-vous  des  dessus  de  porte?     The  note  ex- 
plains: le  dessus  de  quelque  chose,  the  choice 
of  something ;  here  dessus  de  porte,  '  door-top ' 
or  '  novelty.'    A  far-fetched  explanation,  or  per- 
haps a  confusion  with  dessus  du  panier  which 
means  indeed  'the  cream  of  something.'     As 
a  matter  of  fact,  Pons  merely  inquires  whether 
the  second-hand  dealer  has  any  painted  panels 
such  as  are  found  over  doors  in  the  better-class 
French  houses.     Some  of  those  panels  painted 
by  Watteau  and  others  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury   are    highly    prized. — Page    36,    note    1. 
The  sou  pour  lime  is  not  one  per  cent.,  but 
five.     See  moreover  page  38,  1.  4  and  1.  11. — 
Page   48,   note    1.     The   best-known   Monty  on 
prize  is  not  the  one  for  the  best  book,  but 
rather  the   one   given   for   the   most   virtuous 
deed. — Page  50,  note  1  states:   In  Balzac  en 
refers  both  to  persons  and  things.     This  is  in 
no  way  characteristic  of  Balzac,  but  is  quite 
common,   and   in   the   present   instance    offers 
nothing  that  is  abnormal. — Page  81,  note   1. 
de  quoi  il  retourne  does  not  mean  '  what  brings 
him  to  this.'     It  is  a  popular  expression  mean- 
ing 'what's  up,'  'what's  going  on.'     Je  m'en 
vais  voir  de  quoi  il  retourne  =  I  am  going  to 
see    how    matters    stand; — note    2.    sange    in 
Mme.   Cibot's   speech  means   change   and  not 
sanglc;  cf.  page  91  Je  m'en  sarge,  for  charge. 
— Page  102,  note  2.     Pour  lors  does  not  mean 
'even  then,'  but  simply  alors. — Page  130,  note 

2.  une  surprise  is  not  a  jumping  jack,  but  a 
jack-in-the-box. — Page  138,  note  2.     Mme  Ci- 
bot's incorrect  monde-piete  is  corrected  by  the 


editor  as  "  monde-de-piete  " ;  the  proper  form 
is  mont-de-piete. — Page  141,  note  2.  c'est  bien 
terrible  a  dire.  The  note  states :  '  for  il  est,' 
which  is  an  error;  c'  stands  for  cela  and  il 
would  not  be  tolerated  here. — Page  155,  note  2 
says  au  jour  d'aujourd'hui  =  from  day  to  day. 
It  means  '  nowadays.' — Page  180,  1.  1.  je  ne 
me  fie  qu'a  vous  pour  me  choisir  un  notaire 
.  .  .  qui  vienne  recevoir  .  .  .  mon  testament. 
The  editor  calls  this  subjunctive  one  of  wish 
or  desire.  It  is  a  final  subjunctive; — note  2 
economisoter,  save  or  hoard.  The  note  should 
state  that  this  is  a  neologism  coined  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment  to  rhyme  with  chipotent, 
carottent,  tripotent. — Page  206,  note  2  un  ex- 
pres;  not  '  a  special  letter,'  but  '  a  messenger.' 
— Page  210,  note  1  fait  le  lundi.  The  editor 
explains :  "  keep  Saint-Monday  (Holy  Week) ." 
Faire  le  lundi  is  a  very  wide-spread  and  per- 
nicious habit  among  the  laboring  classes  in 
many  European  countries,  of  idling  every  Mon- 
day in  order,  no  doubt,  to  rest  up  after  Sun- 
day's dissipation. — Page,  214,  11.  31-32  the  text 
reads :  je  vais  donner  un  coup  de  pied  jusque 
chez  monsieur,  and  the  editor  translates  this 
by :  I  am  going  to  set  my  foot  in  the  business. 
The  meaning  is  in  reality:  I  am  going  to  run 
down  to  see  Monsieur.  Donner  un  coup  de 
pied  jusque  is  slang  for  '  run  over  or  down  to ' ; 
formed  after  donner  un  coup  de  main,  d'epaule, 
'lend  a  hand,'  'give  a  lift,'  etc. — Page  217, 
note  2  en  os  de  boudin,  translated :  "  literally 
turn  to  pudding  bones,  i.  e.,  go  up  in  smoke." 
Unfortunatety,  there  are  no  bones  in  the  pud- 
ding, and  the  expression  used  by  Mme  Cibot 
is  a  mispronunciation  of  eau  de  boudin; 
boudin  =  sausage. — Page  224,  note  1.  The 
editor  translates  une  perruque  soignee  by  'a 
fine  wigging,  a  blow.'  The  only  meaning  I 
know  for  the  expression  is:  'a  fine  scolding,' 
and  that  is  moreover  all  that  Topinard  got.5 


Western  Reserve  University. 


J.   L.   BORGERHOFF. 


5  The  French  of  the  questionnaire  is  in  need  of  re- 
vision. So  page  258,  20  ;  259,  38  ;  261,  66-67  ;  262,  84 
and  90  ;  263,  98-99  ;  265,  138  ;  266,  159  ;  267,  182-183  ; 
267,  186 ;  268,  192  ;  268,  193  ;  268,  205 ;  268,  206  ;  270, 
229-230.  Note  also,  p.  272  ("Sources  of  his  knowl- 
edge"), le  physiologique  and  qu'est-ce  qu'il  avail  ton  jours 
deja  fait?  p.  273  ("Characters"),  Que  croyait  Balzac 
souvent? — Que  sait-on  de  la  societe  actuelle  du  temps  de 
Balzac  et  qu'il  decrit? 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


227 


Montesquieu  et  I'esclavage.  Etude  Bur  les 
origines  de  1'opinion  anti-esclavagiste  en 
France  au  XVI  He  siecle,  par  EUSSELL  PAR- 
SONS JAMESON.  Paris,  Hachette,  1911. 

in-s,  ;;;i  pp. 

Le  nouveau  livre  de  M.  Jameson  est  une 
nintribution  precieuse  a  1'histoirc  de  Panti- 
esclavagisme  et  represente  line  somme  conside- 
rable de  travail  et  de  recherches.  Je  me  hate 
done  de  declarer  que  si,  dans  le  detail,  je  ne  me 
trouve  point  toujours  d'accord  avec  1'auteur, 
je  tions  tout  d'abord  a  rendre  hommage  a  sa 
conscience  et  a  son  scrupuleux  souci  de  Pex- 
actitude. 

L'ouvrage  a  une  portee  beaucoup  plus  con- 
siderable que  le  titre  ne  le  laisserait  supposer: 
commc  nous  aliens  le  voir,  M.  Jameson  ne 
s'en  est  pas  tenu  a  Montesquieu  et  a  see  pre- 
decesseurs  immediats,  il  est  alle  chercher  tres 
loin,  trop  loin  meme  a  mon  avis,  les  origines  des 
opinions  de  Montesquieu  et  a  trace  une  veri- 
table histoire  des  doctrines  sur  I'esclavage, .  de- 
puis  le  Ve  siecle  grec  jusqu'a  Montesquieu. 
Si  nous  ne  nous  plaignons  pas  de  trouver  ainsi 
reunis,  en  corps,  des  textes  et  des  opinions  que 
1'on  n'a  pas  toujours  le  temps  d'aller  chercher 
dans  les  ouvrages  speciaux,  il  faut  cependant 
reconnaitre  que  le  livre  de  M.  Jameson  y  a 
perdu  en  unite  et  en  composition.  Sur  les  371 
pages  que  comprend  cette  etude,  212  sont  con- 
sacrees  a  des  travaux  d'approche  qui  sont  loin 
d'etre  inutiles,  mais  qui  font  paraitre  un  peu 
maigre  la  part  accordee  a  Montesquieu  et  sem- 
blent  releguer  1'auteur  de  I'Esprit  des  Lois  au 
second  plan. 

Je  n'ai  guere  qualite  pour  juger  de  la  pre- 
miere partie  de  ce  travail.  M.  Jameson  y  etudie 
successivement  I'esclavage  dans  Pantiquite,  sa 
transformation  en  servage,  les  origines  et  le 
developpement  de  la  traite  des  noirs  jusqu'a 
Montesquieu  en  s'en  tenant  dans  le  domaine 
des  faits.  II  reprend  ensuite  le  meme  sujet 
et  1'envisageant  sous  un  nouvel  aspect,  montre 
quelle  6tait  sur  ce  point  la  legislation  fran- 
c,aise,  puis  analyse  I'esclavage  dans  ses  rapports 


avec  le  droit,  avec  la  religion  et  avec  la  littura- 
ture.  On  voit  imniediatement  que  chacun  de 
ces  chapitres  tres  serres,  pleins  de  faits  et 
d'apergns  interessants  aurait  pu  fournir  la 
matiere  d'une  longue  etude.  On  aurait  done 
mauvaisc  grace  a  reprocher  a  M.  Jameson  d'avoir 
ete  incomplet;  je  me  permettrai  cependant  de 
signaler  quelques  omissions  qui  m'ont  particu- 
liercment  frappe. 

S'il  est  vrai,  comme  le  dit  M.  Jameson,  dans 
son  premier  chapitre,  qu'a  Home,  a  1'epoque 
i  inperiale,  "  on  immolait  des  milliers  d'esclaves 
dans  les  fetes  funebres  ct  les  combats  de 
Pamphitheatre," x  encore  n'aurait-il  pas  ete 
inutile  de  dire  que  certains  esclaves,  pre- 
cepteurs,  secretaires,  copistes,  ouvriers  d'art, 
f aisaient  vraiment  partie  de  la  "  familia "  et 
etaient  traites  de  facon  plus  douce.  II  suffit 
de  lire  les  lettres  de  Ciceron  d'une  part  et  de 
se  rappeler  les  affranchis  d'autre  paii,  pour 
s'en  convaincre.  II  semble  en  tout  cas  qu'une 
question  aussi  complexe  ne  pouvait  etre  traitee 
en  quelques  lignes  et  sans  distinguer  des 
epoques. 

Ije  second  ehapitre,  sur  les  Origines  de  la 
traite  des  noirs  est  un  excellent  resume  histo- 
rique;  j'aurais  cependant  voulu  que  M.  Jame- 
son y  insistat  davantage  sur  le  role  joue  en 
Espagne  par  Las  Casas,  au  XVIe  siecle,  alors 
qu'il  ne  lui  accorde  que  deux  lignes.2  L'apotre 
des  Indiens  pour  qui  Charles-Quint  avait  tant 
d'affection  meritait  mieux  qu'une  simple  men- 
tion, d'autant  que  la  Brevissima  relatio  traduite 
dans  toutes  les  langues  de  PEurope  contribua 
certainement  a  creer  un  courant  anti-esclava- 
giste. C'est  une  omission  du  meme  genre  que 
je  releverai  dans  la  partie  consacre"e  aux  casui- 
stes.3  II  aurait  ete  interessant  d'etudier  au 
moms  brievement  quelques-uns  des  pre'de'ces- 
seurs  de  Sanchez  et  en  particulier  Sepulveda, 
Padversaire  de  Las  Casas,  et  Victoria  dont  les 
Relectiones  publiees  a  Lyon  en  1557  renfer- 
ment  des  discussions  si  curieuses  sur  le  droit 
naturel  des  sauvages. 

Si  d'autre  part,  il  est  vrai  que  les  ecrivains 
humanitaires  sont  rares  dans  notre  XVIe  siecle 


1  P.  19. 


»P.  33. 


5  Pp.  1 24  et  seq. 


228 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


frangais  et  s'il  faut  loucr  M.  Jameson  d'avoir 
rendu  homraage  au  grand  jurisconsulte  Jean 
Bodin,  je  m'etonne  qu'il  ait  passe  aussi  rapide- 
nient  sur  Montaigne.4  Nous  lui  accordons  que 
le  cliapitre  des  Cannibaks  n'est  qu'une  satire 
a  peine  deguisee  de  nos  mcsurs;  il  est  moins 
exact  de  dire  qu'il  ne  parait  pas  que  Montaigne 
ait  jamais  songe  a  1'esclavage.  Je  renvoie  sur 
ce  point  au  chapitre  des  Codies  qui  eontient  en 
faveur  des  Indiens  du  Nouveau  Monde  un 
plaidoyer  dont  la  note  emue  et  indignee  est 
des  plus  remarquables  chez  Montaigne. 

I^nfin,  M.  Jameson  signale  "  1'eutree  du  sujet 
de  1'esclavage  dans  la  litterature  courante"  en 
1735  a  propos  du  discours  d'un  noir  de  la 
Jamaique  public  par  1'abbe  Prevost  dans  le 
Pour  et  le  Contre.  En  realite  le  discours  qu'il 
analyse  n'est  qu'un  lieu  commun  que  Ton  re- 
trouverait  dans  les  Histoires  de  Tacite,  et  plus 
prcs  de  Montesquieu  chez  Pierre  Martyr,  I'au- 
teur  des  Oceani  Decades,,  et  surtout  chez  1'auteur 
du  poeme  epique  de  YAraucana  Ercilla  y  Zu- 
iiiga,  dont  Voltaire  avait  analyse  Foeuvre  dans 
son  Essai  sur  la  poesSe  epique.  Le  discours  de 
Moses  Bom  Saam  reproduit  par  M.  Jameson 
rappelle  en  particulier  do  fagon  frappante  le 
discours  de  Colocolo  traduit  par  Voltaire. 

Laissant  de  cote  ces  questions  de  detail  qui 
n'ont  qu'une  importance  secondaire,  il  n'en  est 
pas  moins  vrai  que  la  premiere  partie  du  tra- 
vail de  M.  Jameson  remplit  parfaitement  son 
but,  qui  est  de  nous  montrer  1'etat  de  1'opinion 
publique  au  moment  approximatif  ou  Montes- 
quieu compose  le  livre  XV  de  I'Esprit  des  Lois. 
Bien  que  Ton  eut  fort  discute,  et  en  particulier 
a  Bordeaux.,  sur  les  negres,  et  bien  que  Ton 
puisse  trouver  quelques  protestations  isolees 
contre  la  conquete  des  Indes  Occidentalcs,  il 
n'y  avait  pas  a  proprement  parler  de  courant 
anti-esclavagiste  et  tout  semblait  s'opposer  a  la 
naissance  d'un  tel  mouvement. 

Avec  la  seconde  partie  nous  entrons  dans  le 
vif  du  sujet.  Avant  de  discuter  les  opinions 
de  Montesquieu,  M.  Jameson  a  justement 
penee  qu'il  etait  utile  de  nous  remettre  les 
textes  sous  les  yeux;  il  1'a  fait5  de  fagon  sci- 


*  P.  143. 


5.Pp.  219-247. 


entifique  en  dormant  une  veritable  edition  cri- 
tique du  livre  XV  de  I'Esprit  des  Lois.  Par- 
tant  du  texte  de  la  premiere  edition  qu'il 
reproduit,  et  se  servant  dos  editions  poste- 
rieures  et  des  documents  precieux  retrouves  et 
publics  par  M.  Barckhausen,6  M.  Jameson  a 
cssaye  et  en  bien  des  cas,  rnalgre  les  difficultes 
de  la  tache,  a  reussi  a  surprenclre  les  precedes 
de  composition  de  Montesquieu  et  a  nous  mon- 
trer Devolution  de  sa  pensee. 

Avec  beaucoup  de  justesse  il  fait  tout  d'abord 
remarquer  que  le  titre  donne  par  Montesquieu 
au  livre  XV  ne  repond  pas  au  sujet  traite  dans 
ce  livre.  Promettant  de  nous  expliquer  "  Com- 
ment les  lois  de  1'esclavage  civil  ont  du  rapport 
avec  la  nature  du  climat"  Montesquieu  ne  fait 
qu'effieurer  la  question  et  ne  lui  consacre  qu'un 
maigre  paragraplie. 

De  meme,  apres  avoir  pose  en  fait  "  que 
l'escla\age  n'est  pas  bon  par  sa  nature,  qu'il 
n'est  utile  ni  au  maitre,  ni  a  1'esclave " 
(Ch.  i),  Montesquieu  dans  le  cours  des  chapi- 
tres  suivants  semble  lui  reconnaitre  un  droit 
a  I'existenoe  quand  il  traite  des  abus  de  1'escla- 
vage (Ch.  xi )  ou  declare  que  lois  civiles 
doivent  chercher  "  a  en  dter  les  abus." 
(Ch.  x). 

Faut-il  croire  avec  M.  Jameson7  que  Mon- 
tesquieu aurait  fait  disparaitre  ces  defauts  de 
composition  s'il  avait  eu  le  temps  de  mettre  la 
derniere  main  a  son  ceuvre?  Nous  ne  le  pen- 
sons  pas.  Montesquieu  n'a  pas  du  s'embarras- 
ser  de  ces  contradictions  qui,  du  reste,  ne  me 
paiaissent  pas  avoir  une  trds  grande  impor- 
tance. Condamnant  1'esclavage  en  principe,  il 
devait  certainement  quand  son  temperament 
conservateur  reprenait  le  dessus,  1'admettre  en 
fait  et  meme  lui  reconnaitre  quelques  avantages. 

Ce  qui  en  realite  constitue  la  superiorite  de 
Montesquieu  sur  ses  nombreux  predecesseurs, 
c'est  qu'il  a  introduit  dans  la  discussion  des 
theories  esclavagistes  un  element  humain. 
Sans  negliger  la  question  juridique  et  si  1'on 
peut  dire  theorique,  Montesquieu,  au  moins 

6  Montesquieu.  IS  Esprit  des  lois  et  les  archives  de  la  Bre~de. 
Bordeaux,  1904. 

7  P.  259. 


November,  1911. ] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


229 


une  fois,  s'est  depart!  do  son  impassibilite 
pmbablemcnt  vouluc,  dans  Ic  faineux  Chapitrc 
V  qui  traite  plus  specialement  "  de  1'csclavagc 
des  Negres."  Comme  1'a  fort  bien  fait  voir  M. 
Jameson,  1'impression  d'ensemble  que  1'on 
retire  de  la  lecture  du  livre  XV  est  toute  a 
I'honneur  dc  Montesquieu  et  les  opinions  en 
leur  fond  anti-esclavagistes  de  cette  partic  de 
I' Esprit  des  Lois  nous  apparaissent  comme  sin- 
gulierement  hardies  et  genereuseu  quand  on 
les  replace  dans  leur  temps.  II  faut  savoir 
gre  a  1'auteur  de  ce  livre  de  nous  avoir  montre 
a  1'aide  de  textes  precis,  et  sans  jamais  se 
laisser  aller  a  des  conjectures  hasardeuses,  com- 
ment Montesquieu  a  rait  "  progresse  "  et  com- 
ment son  esprit  avait  "  profite  "  avec  le  temps, 
la  reflexion  et  les  lectures. 

Nous  renverrons  a  1'ouvrage  meme  de  M. 
Jameson  pour  1'etude  des  sources  du  livre  XV 
et  pour  sa  place  dans  VEsprit  des  Lois;  on  y 
trouvera  quelques  chapitres  d'une  critique  avi- 
see  et  lucide  qui  font  grand  honneur  a  1'auteur 
de  ee  .travail.  Avec  lui  nous  dirons  en  termi- 
nant  que  si  Montesquieu  semble  avoir  etc  trop 
hesitant,  a  ncntre  gre,  dans  ses  opinions  anti- 
esclavagistes,  il  n'en  a  pas  moms  contribue 
pour  beaucoup  a  creer  le  mouvement  qui  de- 
vait,  aprcs  de  longues  annees  de  lutte,  aboutir 
a  I'emancipation  des  noirs  dans  les  possessions 
franchises.  A  ce  titre  on  nous  permettra  de 
regretter  quo  M.  Jameson  au  lieu  de  donner 
de  longs  "developpements  a  1'etude  des  origines 
n'ait  pas  etudie  plus  en  detail  1'influcnce  dc 
Montesquieu  sur  les  idees  du  XVIIIe  siecle. 
II  nous  promet  de  le  faire  bientot  et  il  est 
certainement  qualifie  pour  un  travail  de  ce 
genre. 

Tel  qu'il  est,  le  livre  M.  Jameson  eclaire 
singulierement  cette  partie  de  1'ceuvre  de  Mon- 
tesquieu ct  rendra  dc  t res  reels  services  a  tous 
ceux  qui  dans  1'avenir  voudront  etudier  VEsprit 
des  Lois. 

GILBERT  CHINARD. 

Brown  University. 


Laokuon.  Less  ing,  Herder,  Goethe.  Selections, 
edited  with  an  Introduction  and  n,  Commentary 
by  WILLIAM  G.  HOWARD.  New  York,  Henry 
Holt  and  Co.,  1910.  8vo.,  clxviii  +  470  pp. 
(with  an  etching  of  the  Laokoon  group). 

Among  a  multitude  of  nondescript  and  in- 
felicitous text-books  which  appear  in  public  from 
year  to  year  there  is  found  now  and  then  one 
which  is  worthy  of  serious  consideration,  because 
it  fills  more  than  merely  a  commercial  need. 
Such  a  book  is  the  edition  of  Leasing' s  Laokoon 
by  William  Guild  Howard  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity. It  is  the  work  of  a  scholar  and  withal  of  an 
enthusiast.  An  uncommon  book. 

It  may  not  be  perfectly  correct  to  speak  of  this 
edition  as  if  it  were  an  edition  of  the  Laokoon  of 
Lsssing  only,  when  the  book  contains  selections 
from  three  essays:  Goethe,  Uber  Laokoon ;  Lao- 
koon, oder  ubffi'  die  Grenzen  dcr  Malcrei  und 
Pocsie,  von  Gotthold  Ephraim  Lessing  ;  and 
Erstes  Waldohen  of  the  Kritiwhe  Walder  the 
author  of  which  is  Herder.  On  the  other  hand 
it  is  right  to  think  of  Lessing  alone  or  principally 
of  Lessing  in  connection  with  this  edition  because 
the  Introduction  and  the  Commentary  are  built 
up  around  the  essay  of  Lessing  and  after  all  Her- 
der's essay  is  a  criticism  of  Lessing' s  and  Goethe's 
comparatively  short  discussion  likewise  presup- 
poses an  acquaintance  with  Lessing' s  arguments. 

The  idea  of  printing  these  essays  together  seems 
to  be  traceable  to  Hermann  Grimm.  Professor 
Thomas  of  Columbia  University,  who  long  ago  in- 
stituted in  the  University  of  Michigan  "A  study 
of  Lessing' s  Laokoon  with  comparison  of  the 
critiques  of  Herder  and  Goethe,"  is  responsible 
for  passing  on  the  idea,  until  it  finally  resulted  in 
the  preparation  of  this  book. 

It  was  an  admirable  idea  to  have  the  three  great 
movements,  Rationalism  (represented  by  Les- 
sing's  essay),  Romanticism  (represented  by  Her- 
der's), and  Classicism  (represented  by  Goethe's), 
cooperating  with  each  other  and  correcting  each 
other  in  the  solution  of  an  esthetic  problem.  On 
one  side  of  the  cool,  intellectual,  almost  un- 
esthetic  Lessing,  making  fine  distinctions,  postu- 
lating poetic  devices,  incapable  of  sensuous  delight 
we  have  arrayed  Herder,  the  man  of  emotion  and 


230 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES, 


[  Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


instinct,  coloring  everything  by  his  warmth  of 
feeling,  insisting  upon  the  rights  of  individual 
and  national  peculiarity.  On  the  other  side  stands 
Goethe,  at  one  time  and  still  sensitive  to  sensuous 
pleasure,  but  unlike  the  younger  Goethe  seeking 
in  this  "tragic  idyll,"  as  he  names  the  marble 
group,  a  typical  and  symbolical  significance. 
Thrf>P  rlifFwrfiiif:  man.  hut  all  of  them  "  Beautv"- 


Three  different  men,  but  all  of  them 
mad  ! 

The  date  of  the  execution  of  the  group,  unques- 
tionably tine  work  of  Agesander  of  Rhodes  and  his 
two  sons  Polydorus  and  Athenodorus,  has  been 
much  disputed.  Howard  selects  the  year  50  B.  c. 
as  more  probable  than  either  of  the  two  extreme 
dates  200  B.  c.  or  79-81,  the  time  of  Titus,  which 
Leasing  favored. 

Howard  shows  also  that  the  story  representing 
both  sons  as  perishing  with  the  father  is  very 
ancient,  and  so  the  destruction  of  the  three  to- 
gether was  not  an  invention  of  Vergil  as  Lessing 
had  believed. 

Again  Howard  has  been  able  to  make  use  of  a 
discovery  by  Dr.  Ludwig  Pollak  of  an  antique 
arm  representing  the  right  arm  of  a  Laocoon, 
the  shape  of  which  proves  conclusively  that  the 
father's  arm  ought  to  be  bent  backward  toward 
the  tail  of  the  serpent  biting  him  in  the  hip. 

If  the  difference  between  painting  and  poetry 
was  a  problem  known  to  the  ancients,  Howard 
shows  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  his  Introduction  that 
Lessing' s  "ancients"  did  very  little  to  formulate 
the  difference.  Aristotle  furnishes  no  useful  dis- 
tinction. Cicero  had  no  insight  into  the  difference 
at  all.  Horace  encouraged  the  confusion  of  the 
arts,  though  his  fatal  axiom  ' '  Ut  pictura  poesis ' ' 
did  not  mean  in  the  context  what  it  came  to  mean 
later  separated  from  the  context.  Quintilian  has 
practically  nothing  to  say.  Simonides'  witty  an- 
tithesis that  ' '  painting  is  dumb  poetry  and  poetry 
is  a  speaking  picture"  could  not  help  equating 
painting  and  poetry,  though  there  was  no  such 
intention.  Even  the  quotation  which  Lessing  gives 
on  the  title-page  means  less  than  Lessing  made  it 
mean. 

The  poorest  chapter  in  the  book  because  of 
its  irrelevancy  is  the  chapter  entitled  "'Poetic' 
Painting  and  Sculpture."  Page  25,  lines  11  ff., 
Lessing  says  he  is  fighting  ' '  Schilderungssucht ' ' 
and  "  Allegoristerei."  The  central  theme  of  this 
chapter  ought  to  have  been  what  Lessing  calls 
' '  Allegoristerei. ' '  The  material  ought  to  have 
been  subordinated  to  this  theme  ;  if  refractory,  it 
ought  to  have  been  assigned  to  the  Notes.  If 
Lessing  had  Rubens  in  mind,  as  Howard  thinks, 
the  discussion  must  necessarily  have  centred  about 
him  and  not  degenerated  into  a  diffuse  and  prolix 
description  of  Barock,  Rococo  and  Zopfstil.  The 
last  six  lines  of  the  chapter  are  more  to  the  point 
than  all  the  rest  of  it. 


The  thesis  of  "Schilderungssucht"  is  not  as 
clearly  worked  out  in  the  next  chapter  as  it 
should  be.  It  is  very  hard  to  see  for  many  pages 
what  all  these  paragraphs  have  to  do  with  ' '  pic- 
torial" poetry  and  what  is  meant  by  "pictorial" 
poetry.  Is  it  romantic  extravagance,  bombast, 
obscenity,  unriaturalness,  or  what  is  it  ?  We  are 
surer  of  our  ground  when  we  strike  such  passages 
as  this  :  "  he  ( Wernicke)  never  indulged  in  frosty 
descriptions  of  the  outward  aspect  of  things." 
After  that  there  follows  a  pertinent  story  of 
Brockes,  Haller,  Kleist,  Thomson  and  Klopstock 
with  their  mania  for  description. 

The  chapter  on  "  Lessing' s  Problem  among  the 
Moderns"  is  a  "monstrum."  To  make  it  "u'ber- 
sichtlich"  it  ought  to  have  been  divided  into 
three  different  parts,  "Italy  and  France,"  "Eng- 
land," "Germany."  The  sharply  defined  thesis 
which  Lessing  insisted  on  is  lacking  here. 

The  anticipations  of  Lessing  in  France  are 
mentioned,  but  Du  Bos  who  might  have  made 
Laokoon  superfluous,  or  Diderot  who  makes  it 
absurd  longer  to  refer  to  the  parallel  of  the  arts, 
or  even  Count  Caylus,  whom  Lessing  ridicules 
but  whose  writings  contain  passages  which  remind 
one  of  Lessing,  ought  to  have  been  made  more 
prominent  to  conform  to  the  theme  of  the  chapter. 

We  fare  better  in  Howard's  treatment  of  Eng- 
land. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  are  not  surprised  to 
learn  that  Germany  is  suffering  under  the  same 
delusion,  that  poetry  is  a  species  of  painting  ; 
so  we  care  little  about  Gottsched's  definition  of 
poetry  which  is  without  an  inkling  of  prophecy. 
We  are  interested  to  hear  that  Lessing  stands 
closer  to  Gottsched  than  to  Bodmer  and  Brei- 
tinger  who  commend  the  very  poetry  which  Less- 
ing condemns,  the  Alpen  of  Haller,  Howard  has 
done  well  to  bring  this  whole  discussion  into  rela- 
tion to  the  psychology  of  the  eighteenth  century 
as  it  is  represented  by  Baumgarten's  philosophy 
in  which  the  lower  powers  of  the  soul  and  the 
higher  powers  of  the  mind  are  combined  in  the 
perception  of  beauty.  The  transition  from  Leib- 
niz's monads  to  Baumgarten,  from  Baumgarten  to 
Mendelssohn  is  not  however  carefully  made. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  said  of  the  commentary 
more  even  than  of  the  Introduction,  that  it  is 
packed  full  of  the  richest  material.  The  great  re- 
gret is  that  such  a  valuable  book  could  not  have 
been  indexed.  There  are  many  things  which 
ought  to  have  been  made  more  accessible  to  the 
student.  I  shall  refer  to  only  a  few  of  these  most 
excellent  expository  paragraphs  which  to  my  mind 
would  very  profitably  have  taken  the  place  of 
historical  material  in  the  Introduction  ;  but  of 
course  that  is  very  largely  a  matter  of  taste  in 
arrangement ;  there  is  the  discussion  of  "  Bewun- 
derung  ist  ein  kalter  Affekt, ' '  p.  345  ;  the  tran- 


November,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTKS. 


231 


sitory,  p.  353  ;  "Bekleidung,"p.  366 ;  "Zeichen," 
the  means  of  expression,  p.  368;  "Illusion,"  p. 
388 ;  the  psychology  of  vision,  p.  392 ;  and  many 
other  short,  as  well  as  long  comments  on  instruc- 
tive and  live  esthetic  themes. 

It  is  too  bad  that  the  book.s  described  in  many 
places  in  the  Introduction  and  the  Notes  could 
not  have  been  printed  with  the  others  at  the  end 
of  the  book.  I  refer  especially  to  such  books  as 
Theodor  Meyer,  Das  Stilgfiwtz  tier  Poexlc;  Bryant, 
On  the  Limits  of  Descriptive  Writing ;  the  valuable 
articles  which  Professor  Howard  has  himself  con- 
tributed ;  and  many  others  which  are  there  re- 
ferred to. 


J.  A.  C.  HILDNER. 


University  of  Michigan. 


KNOWLES-FAVARD,    Perfect    French     Possible. 
Boston  :  Heath,  1910.     vi  +  52  pp. 

Those  intending  to  use  this  little  book  should 
first  read  pp.  15-22,  then  return  to  pp.  1-14. l  This 
lack  of  proper  arrangement  is  unfortunate  in  a 
work  that  gives  evidences  of  accurate  knowl- 
edge and  much  study.  Moreover,  every  teacher 
of  French  must  sympathize  with  the  aim  of  its 
authors  ;  for  they  seek  to  teach  pronunciation 
according  to  the  results  of  recent  scientific  inves- 
tigation but  without  using  either  technical  expres- 
sions or  special  instruments.  How  far  they  have 
been  successful  is  another  question,  however,  and 
personally  we  cannot  agree  with  their  own  state- 
ment that  "  no  student  of  French  can  afford  to  do 
without  this  little  book."  * 

To  begin  with,  they  have  often  been  forced  to 
build  on  insecure  foundations.  Given,  for  in- 
stance, the  sound  of  o  in  French  cote  (interna- 
tional o),  it  is  scientifically  correct  to  form  the  o 
of  French  donne  (intern,  o)  by  lowering  the 
tongue  and  reducing  the  lip-rounding  : 3  then, 
with  both  o  and  o  given,  one  may,  by  combination 
with  international  e  and  c  produce  intern.  0  and 
ee.*  But  the  whole  edifice  is  worthless  unless  the 
o  of  cote  is  properly  mastered,  and  of  this  sound 
our  authors  are  satisfied  to  say  that  it  is  the  same 
as  that  of  o  in  Eng.  ode  ! 5  Another  serious  defect 
in  the  very  foundations  of  this  system  of  French 
pronunciation  is  a  lack  of  emphasis  upon  the  far 
greater  rounding  of  the  lips  in  French  than  in 

'Exercises  appear  on  these  pages  which  require  a 
knowledge  of  what  follows,  e.g.,  the  pronunciation  of 
cu1  (p.  6)  is  not  given  till  p.  10  ;  of  oi  (p.  9)  not  until 
p.  21  ;  likewise  for  ertu,  mi,  in. 

2 Perfect  Fr.  Poss.,  p.  ii.  3  Op.  cit.,  p.  18. 

4  Op.  cit.,  p.  19,  designated  by  cu2  and  cu1. 

8  P.  17. 


English.  "  Round  the  lips  aa  for  ou  (Eng.  ooze) 
and  while  holding  them  still  and  motionless  try  to 
say  i  (Eug.  eel).  The  result  will  be  u"  *  (Fr. 
rue).  It  is,  of  course,  unnecessary  to  point  out 
that  Fr.  ou  is  not  Eng.  oo  or  to  refer  to  Rousse- 
lot's  "les  luvres  tres  fermees."  T  To  teach  the 
French  nasals  without  having  recourse  to  imita- 
tion is,  we  admit,  difficult ;  but,  as  it  seems  hardly 
practical  to  tell  students  of  French  (not  of  physi- 
ology or  phonetics)  to  "sing  d  for  two  beats, 
lower  the  soft  palate,  continuing  two  beats 
more,"  *  we  suggest  as  a  star  ting  point  the  "hm- 
hm"  which  is  used  so  frequently  in  the  United 
States  instead  of  "  yes  "  (or  "  no  "  according  to 
the  accentuation).  At  any  rate,  it  is  unwise  to 
teach  ' '  oin  =  ou  -f-  in  =  Eng.  wang  ' '  or,  as  is 
done  twice,  ien  =  Yan  in  Eng.  Yankee.9  Such 
teaching  leads  the  pupil  to  form  an  unfortunate 
habit  which  it  is  very  hard  to  cure. 

We  cannot,  then,  agree  with  the  preface  that 
"it  [this  book]  is  unique  in  that  it  gives  infallible 
rules  for  the  production  of  those  sounds  that  can- 
not be  approximated  in  English."  It  is  original, 
however,  in  the  rule  it  gives  for  e  mute  :  "  the  e 
of  a  mute  syllable  is  not  pronounced  .  .  .  when 
that  syllable  follows  a  vowel  sound."  10  Taken 
in  its  context,  this  rule  is  not  bad,  especially  if  we 
remember  the  limitations  put  upon  it  two  pages 
later.  But  we  must  remember  that  this  does  not 
go  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  that  (rarely,  to  be 
sure)  the  e  may  be  followed  by  a  consonant  com- 
bination such  as  will  not  allow  the  prefixing  even 
of  a  single  consonant  ;  whence  the  mistake  of 
our  authors  in  pronouncing  "rec(e)voir,"  while 
the  correct  pronunciation  retains  the  e  (Passy, 
rd-vQvwar),  in  striking  contrast  to  rec(e')vable 
(rQSvabl)  and  rec(e)veur  (rawce:?1)-11  The  sec- 
tion on  liaisons  will  answer  many  a  question  asked 
by  our  pupils  every  day;  that  on  "linkings" 
might,  we  think,  be  reduced.  A  fifth  and  a  sixth 
rule  on  page  35,  under  the  heading  "A  liaison 
never  occurs,"  would  suffice  to  teach  the  student 
to  pronounce  on  estici  but  Jea(n)ett  id,  aprcs  elle 
but  i'er(s)  elle  ;  and  that  is  all  that  is  necessary. 
Those  persons  who  believe  that  a  Frenchman  could 
make  a  guide  stick  to  his  own  boat  by  repeating 
"pas  d'elle  y  au  Rhone  que  nous"  will  be  inter- 
ested in  the  supplement  where  "Cud  eat  eel" 
is  said  to  represent  the  French  translation  for 
"  What  is  he  saying"  and  "  Ray  pay  tale  mow" 
—  ' '  Repeat  the  word. ' '  But,  to  speak  only  of 
rhythm,  we  would  remind  such  persons  that  "in 

6  P.  18.  • 

''  liousst'lot  and  Laclotte,  Precis  de  Prononciation  Fran- 
pniai?,  p.  37. 

8  Perf.  Fr.  Pos*.,  p.  6. 

9  P.  11  (note)  and  p.  20.  10  P.  29. 

11 V.  Michaelis  and  Passy,  Dictionnaire  phovctiyf  r'e  .'« 
languefran^aise. 


232 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  7. 


French  there  is  no  such  thing  as  word -stress  or 
word-division,"  12  and  that  "en  anglais  on  peut 
di.stinguer  an  aim  (8«'ciw)de  a  name  (s'ttara)."1 
In  short,  this  little  book  is  decidedly  interesting; 
but,  in  order  to  profit  by  the  good  things  it  offers, 
a  student  must  possess  such  a  knowledge  of  French 
pronunciation  as  will  permit  him  to  use  the  sources 
from  which  the  Perfect  French  Possible  is  drawn. 
And  in  that  case,  as  the  proverb  goes,  II  vaut 
mieux  s'adresscr  era  bon  Dieu  qu'a  ses  saints. 


Haverford  College. 


A.  G.  H.  SPIERS. 


CORRESPONDENCE 

'    A  SYNTACTICAL  NOTE 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes, 

SIRS  : — In  Critical  Contributions  to  Early  Eng- 
lish Syntax,  Second  Series  (Christiania,  1910), 
§  50,  Dr.  A.  Trampe  B0dtker  calls  attention  to 
the  opinions  of  Onions  and  Jespersen  that  the 
position  of  the  preposition  after  the  verb  in  a 
relative  clause  in  ME. ,  as  in  Orm  3472  f. , 

.  .  .  [alt  land 
patt  Crist  wass  borenn  inne, 

is  due  to  Scandinavian  influence,  and  shows  that 
the  corresponding  construction  is  found  in  OE. 
in  a  few  cases.  He  also  shows  that  the  shift  in 
order  of  relative  verb  and  preposition  is  illus- 
trated by  the  infinitive  construction.  In  my 
paper  on  the  syntax  of  the  infinitive  in  Chaucer 
(Chaucer  Soc.,  Second  Series,  44,  London,  1909), 
p.  29,  I  have  quoted  from  Wulfiug  several  OE. 
examples  of  the  kind,  and  on  pp.  33-34  I  cite  a 
large  number  of  examples  from  Chaucer  that  show 
the  shift  of  the  preposition  to  a  place  after  the 
infinitive.  This  seems  to  corroborate  B0dtker's 
view  that  foreign  influence  need  not  be  assumed 
in  order  to  account  for  the  construction. 


JOHN  S.  KENYON. 


Btdlcr  Cullcye,  Indianapolis. 


NEVER  LESS  ALONE  THAN  WHEN  ALONE 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes, 

SIRS  : — '  Who  now  reads  Cowley  ?  '  asks  Pope. 
'  Read  all  Cowley,'  advises  Wordsworth.  A  part 
of  the  erudition  that  has  been  displayed  in  Modern 
Language  Notes  (24.  54,  123  ;  25.  28,  96)  con- 
csrning  the  phrase,  '  Never  less  alone  than  when 
aloue,'  might  have  been  spared  by  following  the 
injunction  of  Wordsworth.  I  quote  a  passage 

"  Sweet,  A  Primer  of  Phonetics2,  p.  95. 
1S  Passy,  Les  Sons  du  Fran$ais5,  p.  61. 


from  Cowley's  essay,  Of  Solitude  (Essays  and 
Plays  of  Abraham  Cowley,  ed.  A.  R.  Waller, 
p.  392): 

Nunquam  minus  solus,  quam  cum  solus,  is  now 
become  a  very  vulgar  saying.  Every  Man  and 
almost  every  Boy  for  these  seventeen  hundred 
years,  has  had  it  in  his  mouth.  But  it  was  first 
spoken  by  the  Excellent  Scipio,  who  was  without 
question  a  most  Eloquent  and  Witty  person,  as 
well  as  the  most  Wise,  most  Worthy,  most  Happy, 
and  the  Greatest  of  all  Mankind.  His  meaning 
no  doubt  was  this,  That  he  found  more  satisfaction 
to  his  mind,  and  more  improvement  of  it  by  Soli- 
tude than  by  Company,  and  to  shew  that  he  spoke 
not  this  loosly  or  out  of  vanity,  after  he  had  made 
Rome,  Mistriss  of  almost  the  whole  World,  he 
retired  himself  from  it  by  a  voluntary  exile,  and 
at  a  private  house  in  the  middle  of  a  wood  neer 
Linternum,  passed  the  remainder  of  his  Glorious 
life  no  less  Gloriously. 

The  description  of  Scipio' s  place  of  retirement 
is  borrowed  from  Seneca  (Epist.  86). 


LANE  COOPER. 


Cornell  University. 


BRIEF  MENTION 

The  first  number  of  an  Italian  quarterly  review, 
Studi  Critici  di  Filologia  e  Glottologia,  has 
recently  appeared,  with  Teofilo  Petriella  as 
editor.1  It  is  also  announced  that  the  Abbe  Rous- 
selot  and  H.  Pernot  are  in  charge  of  a  new 
journal  of  experimental  phonetics,  the  Revue  de 
phonetique,  which  will  bs  published  in  Paris. 

Professor  Friedrich  Hanssen,  of  the  University 
of  Chile,  has  been  known  to  us  chiefly  through 
his  short  studies  on  individual  points  of  Old  Spanish 
grammar  and  versification.  Now  we  have  the 
culmination  of  these  shorter  articles  in  the  form  of  a 
Spanische  Grammatik  auf  historische  Gnindlage,2 
which  is  a  masterpiece  of  scholarship  and  patient 
research.  While  the  Castilian  and  other  dialects 
of  Spain  form  the  basis  of  the  grammar,  the 
author  makes  extensive  use  of  the  American 
Spanish  dialects  as  corroborative  material.  In 
addition  to  the  detailed  study  of  phonology  and 
morphology,  the  book  is  noteworthy  for  the  treat- 
ment of  syntax.  The  fund  of  illustrative  material 
ranges  from  the  earliest  Spanish  monuments  to 
such  recent  authors  as  Blasco  Ibaiiez,  Valera, 
Echcgaray,  etc.  An  excellent  word-index  com- 
pletes the  volume. 

1  Naples  ;  Discesa  SanitJl  20.     Subscription,  15  lire  per 
year. 

2  Sammlung  kurzcr  Lehrbiicher  der  romanischen  Sprachen 
'und  Literaturen,  VL    Halle  :  Max  Niemeyer,  1910.    8vo., 
278  pp. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES 


VOL.  XXVI. 


BALTIMORE,   DECEMBER,    1911. 


No.  8. 


RICHARD  BRATHWAITE'S  MERCURIUS 
BRITANICUS 

Recently  there  has  come  into  my  possession  a 
copy  of  Richard  Brathwaite's  play  Mercurius 
Britanicus  (1641)  with  marginal  notes  in  a  con- 
temporary hand  identifying  most  of  the  char- 
acters with  actual  persons.  Since  the  accuracy  of 
these  identifications  can  hardly  be  doubted,  I  wish 
to  record  them  in  the  hope  that  they  may  prove 
of  interest  to  students  of  Brathwaite,  possibly  to 
some  future  editor. 

The  play  is  almost  wholly  a  political  satire  deal- 
ing allegorically  with  the  decision  of  the  twelve 
judges  in  the  famous  Ship-Money  Case,  precipi- 
tated by  Hampden  in  1637.  The  plot  exhibits 
the  judges  under  classical  names  as  brought  before 
the  bar  of  justice,  severely  rebuked,  and  finally 
condemned.  The  scene  is  Smyrna.  A  Prceludium 
(somewhat  in  the  style  of  Jonson's  Induction) 
between  Palinurus  and  the  Satyr,  who  is  to  speak 
the  Prologue,  opens  the  play.  Act  I  pictures  the 
gathering  of  persons  to  witness  the  trial.  Two 
"familiar  friends,"  two  philosophers,  and  two 
rustics  enter  respectively,  and  after  satirical  com- 
ments on  the  judges,  pass  into  the  court-room. 
Act  II,  "the  doore  being  opened,  the  curtaine 
drawne,"  presents  the  trial  itself.  First,  however, 
the  Ghost  of  Coriolauus  delivers  a  solemn  warning 
to  "conferre  pure  justice."  Then  the  prisoners 
are  summoned  one  at  a  time  and  arraigned  ;  but 
those  judges  that  are  dead  appear  as  ghosts  and 
are  leniently  dealt  with.  Throughout  the  trial  the 
two  philosophers  in  the  audience  (in  the  Jon- 
son ian  manner)  make  satirical  comments.  In  Act 
III,  the  prisoners  are  brought  together  before  the 
bar,  and  formal  sentence  is  pronounced.  Since 
' '  hanging  is  too  good  for  them, ' '  they  are  ban- 
ished to  Ireland!  Act  IV  is  a  humorous  satire  on 
the  Puritans.  A  "conventicle  of  Plebeians" 
press  into  the  court-room,  pushing  forward  their 
spokesman,  father  Pinner  [=Prynne?] .  He  pleads 
"First,  that  wee  admit  of  no  order  in  the  Church. 


Secondly,  that  all  rites  and  ceremoniall  reliques, 
to  wit,  Priests  Garments,  all  sorts  of  musick  bee 
abolished  out  of  the  Church.  Lastly  that  there  bee 
no  set  forme  of  prayer."  But  the  Chorus  chants  : 
"Away  with  these  triflers.  .  .  .  Get  you  home, 
follow  your  own  affaires. ' ' 

The  characters  identified  in  my  copy  are  given 
below.  In  virtually  every  case  there  is  clear 
and  decisive  internal  evidence  substantiating  the 
identifications.  I  shall  point  out  in  a  few  cases 
examples  of  this  corroborative  evidence.  Any  one 
who  is  interested  in  discovering  more  should  con- 
sult HowelFs  State  Trials,  iii,  and  Calendar  of 
State  Papers,  Domestic  Series,  cccxlvi. 

Ohost  of  Coriolanus  :  "  Earle  of  Straford." 
Strafford  was  executed  May  12,  1641. 

Who  once  did  flourish  and  did  beare  the  bell 

In  these  assemblies,  as  your  selves  can  tell  .  .  . 

Behold  him  risen  from  his  ghostly  cell 

Him,  whom  the  bosterons  Commons  could  not  quell. 

Nor  whetted  axe,  nor  Scaffold,  nor  black-rod. 

The  twelve  prisoners,  in  the  order  in  which 
they  were  summoned,  are  as  follows  : 

Claudius :  ' '  Baron  Weston  Excheqr. ' '  Sir  Rich- 
ard Weston,  Baron  of  the  Exchequer. 

Cratippus:  "Judge  Crawley  C:  Pleas."  Sir 
Francis  Crawley,  Judge  in  the  Common  Pleas. 

Corticius  :  ' '  Judg  Barkley  K :  Bench. ' '  Sir 
Robert  Berkley,  Justice  of  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench. 

Vigetius:  "Judg  Vernon  C:  Pleas."  Sir  George 
Vernon,  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas.  ' '  When 
he  should  argue,  hee  fained  himself  sick ' ' ; 
"  when  hee  did  enter  the  lists  (hee  most  fortu- 
nately lost  his  arguments  in  the  street)."  For 
a  confirmation  of  these  statements  see  State 
Trials,  iii. 

Trivius :  ' '  Baron  Trevor  Excheqr. ' '  Sir  Thomas 
Trevor,  Baron  of  the  Exchequer. 

Corvus  Aeillius:  "Judge  Crooke  K:  Bench." 
Sir  George  Croke,  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench. 
Several  puns  make  this  identification  clear.  Cf. 


234 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


p.  14:  "Crooked  Acilius";  and  p.  24  :  "to 
wit  Curvus  Acilius  .  .  .  you  had  him,  I  say, 
for  a  precident  (although  your  steps  were 
crooked)  yet  had  you  followed  Crooke  "  .  .  . 

Joachinus :  ' '  Judge  Jones  K :  Bench. ' '  Sir  Wil- 
liam Jones  (d.  1640),  Judge  of  the  King's 
Bench.  Described  in  the  play  as  dead. 

Hortensius  :  "Judge  Hutton  C:  Pleas."  Sir 
Richard  Hutton  (d.  1639),  Judge  of  the  Com- 
mon Pleas.  Described  as  dead,  and  spoken  of 
with  honor.  ' '  Hee  was  so  sincere  a  Guardian 
of  his  Actions,  that  hee  lived  and  died  un- 
tainted ;  the  memory  therefore  of  so  good  and 
worthy  a  Patron  is  to  bee  deplored  with  per- 
petuall  elegies :  he  deservedly  obtained  this 
title ;  An  honest  ludge,  The  poore  mans  Patron 
and  Protectour,  which  title  is  a  greater  glory 
then  the  empery  of  the  worlds  Circumference  ; 
hee  surprized  envy  by  vertue,  and  carried 
honours  to  his  grave."  This  is  in  keeping  with 
the  facts.  Hutton  gave  judgment  in  favor  of 
Hampden  ;  and  although  for  the  sake  of  con- 
formity he  acquiesced  in  the  decision  of  the 
other  judges  on  the  legality  of  the  ship-money 
edict,  he  made  known  his  private  opinion  that 
the  edict  was  illegal. 

Antrivius:  "Baron  Denham  Excheqr."  Sir  John 
Denham  (d.  1639),  Baron  of  the  Exchequer. 
Represented  in  the  play  as  dead. 

Damocles:  "Cheife  Baron  Davenport  Excheqr." 
Sir  Humphrey  Davenport,  Chief  Baron  of  the 
Exchequer.  His  conduct  in  the  ship-money 
case  is  accurately  described. 

Chrysometres :  '  'Cheife  Justice  Finch  Co :  Pleas. ' ' 
Sir  John  Finch,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court  of 
Common  Pleas.  His  flight  from  the  country  in 
1640  is  made  much  of ;  and  his  name  is  clearly 
indicated  by  the  constant  use  of  the  imagery 
of  bird  life.  "Hee  is  flowne  into  another 
Countrey ;  he  left  his  neast  for  fear  hee  should 
have  been  apprehended  in  it,  ever  since  his 
flight  the  speech  is  that  he  sings  now  in  France. 
.  .  .  Let  Chrysometres  long  roost  in  trans- 
marine parts  before  hee  bee  called  home,  we 
have  too  many  such  parates  [parrots] ,  we  have 
been  too  indulgent  to  all  such  birds,"  etc. 

I  was  puzzled   at  first  by  the  fact  that  the 
twelve  judges  are  here  named  exactly  in  the  order 


in  which  they  argued  the  case,  and  in  the  opposite 
order  of  that  in  which  they  signed  the  decision. 
Later  I  discovered  an  explanation  of  this  in  the 
play  :  "  Let  them  be  brought  forth  in  the  same 
order  as  they  did  argue  ...  we  will  begin  first 
with  the  first,  from  the  puny  ludge  to  the  Lord 
Cheif  Justice. ' ' 

One  other  character  is  identified  in  a  marginal 
note  : 

Gliciscus  Horologus:  "Puny  Baron  Page  alias 
Baron  Telclock." 

I  can  find  no  record  of  this  person,  yet  the  ac- 
curacy of  the  identification  seems  to  be  indicated 
by  the  passage  describing  him — which  I  will  quote 
as  a  fair  example  of  the  satire  in  the  play  : 

' '  As  for  Gliciscus,  I  should  rather  have  said 
Gliris,  Judge  Dormant,  you  know  whom  I  meane, 
hee  that  sits  for  a  sipher  on  the  Bench,  the  barren 
Baron  that  hath  little  wit,  and  lesse  honesty, 
because  he  was  your  tell- Clock  (6  yee  purple 
Judges)  his  punishment  shall  bee  to  turne  Sexton, 
and  bee  a  Clock-keeper  in  the  Countrey,  for  his 
simplicity  pleads  for  temperate  punishment." 

Perhaps  a  few  other  facts  about  the  play  may 
not  be  out  of  keeping  here. 

The  title-page  of  my  copy  reads  :  ' '  Mercurius 
Britanicus,  or  The  English  Intelligencer.  A 
Tragic-Comedy,  AT  PARIS.  Acted  with  great  Ap- 
plause. [Ornament.  ]  Printed  in  the  yeare,  1641. ' ' 
The  running  title  is  "Mercurius  Britanicus,  or 
The  English  Intelligencer";  but  prefixed  to  Act 
I  is  a  half-title :  ' '  The  Censure  of  the  ludges  :  or 
The  Court  Cure."  The  printer  in  a  note  To  the 
Reader  says  :  "  If  others  set  forth  Editions  under 
this  Title,  beleeve  mee,  they  are  meerly  adulter- 
ous :  This  Edition  is  onely  true  and  genuine  ;  All 
other  sordid  and  surreptitious. ' '  ' 

Other  editions,  however,  were  set  forth,  whether 
by  the  same  printer  or  not  I  cannot  determine. 
In  the  same  year,  1641,  four  editions  of  the 
play  in  English  and  two  in  Latin  were  is- 
sued.2 Since  then,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  the 

1  This  same  statement  appears  in  the  Latin  edition. 

2  See  British  Museum  Catalogue  ;  Greg  records  only  three 
editions  in  English. 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


235 


English  version  lias  not  been  reprinted  ;  nor  does 
it  deserve  this  honor  at  the  hands  of  the  student 
of  literature.  The  historian,  however,  will  find 
the  play  of  considerable  interest  as  reflecting  the 
attitude  of  the  public  towards  the  Ship-Money 
Edict  and  the  twelve  judges  concerned.  The  Latin 
version  has  been  reprinted  in  Baron  Somers's  Col- 
lection of  Scarce  and  Valuable  Tracts,  1751  (re- 
edited  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  1811).  This  reprint 
is  stated  to  be  from  the  Editio  Secunda ;  accuratis- 
sime  revisa,  castigata,  et  Prceludi  perquam  faceto 
decorata. 

Though  described  on  the  title-page  as  having 
been  "Acted  with  great  Applause  "  (the  Latin 
edition  reads  "  summo  cum  applausu  publici 
acta  ")  the  play  seems  to  be  nothing  more  than  a 
closet  drama,  and  to  have  been  written  and  cir- 
culated as  a  political  pamphlet.  The  statement 
on  the  title-page  has  little  weight.  It  should  be 
borne  in  mind,  however,  that  Brathwaite  had 
written  plays  for  public  presentation,  and  that 
this  play,  though  ill  suited  to  the  purpose,  may 
have  been  actually  staged. 

The  date  of  composition  may  be  fixed  within 
certain  limits.  Since  the  Ghost  of  Strafford  ap- 
pears as  one  of  the  characters,  the  play  must  have 
been  written  after  his  execution,  May  12,  1641; 
and  since  the  printing  was  done  in  1641,  the  com- 
position must  have  taken  place  before  the  close  of 
that  year. 

Though  published  anonymously,  the  play  has 
been  commonly  assigned  to  Richard  Brathwaite. 
The  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  however, 
does  not  mention  it  in  discussing  that  author,  nor 
include  it  in  the  list  of  his  works.  I  should  like 
to  call  attention  to  the  extraordinarily  high  tribute 
paid  in  the  play  to  Judge  Hutton,  Brathwaite' s 
godfather  and  kinsman,  to  whom  Brathwaite  ad- 
dressed his  elegy  Astrceas  Teares.  The  passages 
concerned  speak  eloquently  for  Brathwaite' s 
authorship. 

JOSEPH  QUINCY  ADAMS,  JR. 

Cornell  University. 


ZU   GOETHE'S   EGMONT1 

Urn  mit  H.'s  Frage,  p.  175  unten,  zu  beginnen: 
Die  Bedeutung  der  Worte  Jeder  Wein  setzt  Wein- 
stein  in  den  Fdssern  an  mit  der  Zeit  ist  mir  nie 
unklar  gewesen  :  '  Wenn  der  Mensch  alter  wird, 
dann  gibt  er,  und  ware  er  die  offenste  und  arg- 
loseste  Natur,  sich  nicht  mehr  ganz  so  ofFen,  so 
restlos  wie  er's  in  der  Jugend  zu  tun  gewohnt  war. 
Etwas  scheidet  sich  bei  jedem  Menschen  aus  den 
Erfahrungen  und  Beobachtungen,  die  er  im  Laufe 
seines  Lebens  macht,  aus  und  bleibt  in  seinem 
Innersten  zuriick  (unsichtbar  fur  andere,  wenn 
auch  vielleicht,  wie  hier,  vermutet  von  ihuen).' 

—  Warum  Goethe  gerade  dies  Bild  gewahlt  hat, 
ist  doch  klar  :   'Etwas  schones,'  deutet  Egmont 
leise  damit  an,  '  ist  der  kleine  HinterJw.lt  eigentlich 
nicht,  aber  er  bildet  sich  rait  Naturnotwendig- 
keit.'     Ganz  verstandnislos  deutet  H.  'jedennoch 
so  klaren   Wein '  mit :    die  sonst  vollig  uneigen- 
nutzige  Haltung    beider.     Wie   kommt  er  uber- 
haupt  auf  beidet    Zu  Hinterhalt  vergleiche  man 
Grimm  Wb.,  iv,  2,  1504,  2. 

Hatte  statt  Weinstein  etwa  Kesselstein  da  ge- 
standen  ( '  Jeder  Kessel  setzt  Stein  am  Boden  an 
mit  der  Zeit ' )  —  der  letztere  wird  auch  in  Ame- 
rika  bekannter  sein  als  der  erstere  —  dann  wiirde 
ich  nur  an  der  Art  des  Bildes,  nicht  an  dem 
Anachronismus  Anstoss  nehmen.  Wenn  man  alle 
derartigen  Anachronismen  —  ich  bin  im  Zweifel, 
ob  man  das  Wort  hier  uberhaupt  verwenden  soil 

—  aufzeigen   wollte,   dann   du'rfte   kein  eiuziges 
Goethe'  sches  Werk  verschont  bleiben,  —  um  von 
grosseren  und  tieferen  Anachronismen  zu  schwei- 
gen.     Mir  war's  ubrigens  nicht  so  bekannt  —  und 
so  wird's  den  meisten  Lesern  gehen,  auch  wenn 
sie  in   diesen   Dingen,    wie  ich,  etwas  Bescheid 
wissen,  —  dass  erst  mit  der  Mitte  des  achtzehnten 
Jahrhunderts  der  militarische  Gleichschritt,  haupt- 
sdchlich  in   Preussen  eingefuhrt   sei.     Aber  H. 
fiigt  ja  auch  hiuzu  :  wieder  eingefuhrt.     Er  hatte 
uns  darum  auch  dariiber  belehren  sollen,  wo  und 
wann  er  zuerst  aufgenommen  war.     Offenbar  ver- 
wechselt  er  hier  Marsch  und  besondere  Gelegen- 
heiten,  wozu  der  Einzug  in,  und  der  Marsch  durch 

1  In  reference  to  the  article  by  Lee  M.  Hollander,  Mod. 
Lang.  Notes,  vol.  xxvi,  pp.  174-176. 


236 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


Stadte  gehorte,  eiue  Gelegenheit,  bei  der  der  Hol- 
lander die  spanischen  Truppeu  beobachtet  haben 
wird.  Doch  sehen  wir  davon  ab.  Ich  habe  hier 
ein  Exemplar  von  Ernes  Hochloblichen  Ober- 
Rheinischen  Oreyses  —  Goethes  Vaterstadt  ge- 
horte dazu  !  —  Kriegs-Exercitien,  also  vom  Exer- 
cierreglement,  wie  man  heute  sagen  wiirde.  Wenn 
es  ein  heutiger  preussischer  Leutnant  sahe,  es 
kame  auch  ihn  eiu  Grauen  an.  Ein  paar  Ausziige 
werden  nicht  unwillkommen  seiu.  Zunachst  einer 
aus  dem  Abschnitt  Evolution. 

1. 

Gebet  acht  /  die  Evolution  zu  machen. 
Sobald  diss  Commando  gegeben  /  muss  das 
gantze  Battalion  stille  seyn  /  ohne  zu  sprechen  / 
noch  andere  Bewegungen  zu  machen  /  als  die  so 
befohlen  werden  /  es  seye  mit  dem  Kopff/  Leib  / 
Handen  und  Fussen  /  und  sollen  auch  den  Com- 
mandirenden  Officier  oder  Major  allezeit  ansehen  / 
gleich  wie  beym  Manual  schon  angewiesen. 

2. 

Traget  wohl  euer  Gewehr. 
Mu'ssen  das  Gewehr  /  wie  beym  Manual  ange- 
wiesen /  wohl  tragen  /  so  /  dass  die  Glieder  und 
Reihen  ihr  Gewehr  in  egaler  Linie  haben  /  und 
behalten  /  und  sambtliches  Gewehr  /  als  wann  es 
eines  ware  /  anzusehen  seye. 

109. 
March. 

Tretten  auff  einmahl  mit  dein  lincken  Fuss  an  / 
und  marchiren  langsam  /  biss  wieder  auff  ihren 
vorigen  Platz  /  observirend  /  dass  in  dem  letzten 
Schritt  der  lincke  Fuss  voran  nieder  gesetzt  werde 
/  und  erwarteu  das  folgende  Commando. 

Dann  noch  ein  Paragraph  aus  dem  Abschnitt  Un- 
terricht  /  was  bey  dem  Marchiren  und  Schwencken 
zu  beobachten. 

8. 

Was  das  Marchiren  nun  antrifft,  so  muss  der 
Mann  allemahl  mit  dem  lincken  Fuss  antretten, 
die  Fu'sse  wohl  aufheben,  und  das  Gewehr  wohl 
tragen,  den  Kopff  wohl  hoch  halten,  keineswegs 
aber  reclits-  oder  lincks  herum,  sondern  gerade 
vor  sich  sehen  ;  und  wann  befohlen,  recht-  oder 
lincker  Hand  aufzuschauen,  nur  das  Auge  dahin 
wenden,  ein-  wie  allemahl  nicht  gesch winder,  als 


das  anderemahl  marchiren,  aber  auch  nicht  stille 
stehen,  sondern,  wann  von  dem  vorderisten  mog- 
ten  in  etwas  aufgehalten  werden,  sich  wenigstens 
mit  den  Fiissen  bewegen  und  moviren. 

16. 

Imgleichen  wanu  man  noch  100  Schritt  von 
dem  Campement  ist,  oder  aber  wann  man  durch 
ein  Haupt-Quartier,  oder  durch  eine  Stadt,  wo 
Garnison  lieget,  marchiren  solte,  so  begeben  sich 
die  Tambours  wieder  an  ihre  vorige  Oerther,  im- 
gleichen  schultern  die  Soldaten  wiederum  ihr 
Gewehr .... 

Das  sind  nur  ein  paar  Paragraphen,  aus  ein 
paar  hundert  ausgewahlt.  Um  also  den  Gleich- 
schritt,  die  stramm  gradaus  gerichteten  Augen, 
straffe  Gewehrhaltung  usw.  kennen  zu  lernen, 
brauchte  Goethe  nicht  erst  nach  Berlin  zu  gehen .: 
genau  wie  heute,  hatte  man  das  alles  in  Frank- 
furt gerade  so  schon.  Auch  sollte  man  sich  doch 
einmal  Goethes  Quellen  daraufhin  ansehen,  ob 
von  Albas  Truppen  dort  nicht  auch  eine  ahnliche 
Schilderung  entworfen  wird.  Jedenfalls  darf  man 
nicht  eher  von  einem  Widerwillen  des  Frank- 
furters Goethe  gegen  die  preussisclien  Grenadiere 
sprechen,  bevor  man  ihn  nicht  auf  andere  Weise 
nachgewiesen  hat.  Hier  im  Egmont  handelt  es 
sich  nur  um  das  Grauen  des  freien  Hollander-  vor 
dem  Geist,  der  in  dem  scharfen  Drill  der  spani- 
schen Soldateska  zum  Ausdruck  kommt,  vor  der 
ru'cksichtslosen  Einordnung  des  Einzelwillens  in 
den  von  einem  Miichtigen  dirigierten  Gesamt- 
willen. 

Zu  der  zweiten  von  den  Stellen  aus  Egmont,  die 
H,  bespricht,  kann  ich  die  Bemerkung  nicht 
bergen,  dass  solche  simpeln  Satze  uberhaupt  nicht 
besprochen  werden  soil  ten,  selbst  wenn  sie  ein 
paar  des  Deutschen  offenbar  nicht  sehr  kundige 
Herausgeber  missverstanden  haben.  Ein  jeder 
Gymnasiast,  wenn  er  nur  auf  den  Gegensatz 
zwischen  der  Art  Oraniens  und  Egmonts  geachtet 
hat,  weiss,  wie  der  erstere  hier  seine  Worte  meint. 

Und  so  ist  es  auch  mit  der  ersten  Stelle.  Ich 
kann  mir  nicht  denken,  dass  es  viele  Kenner  des 
Deutschen  gebe,  die  nicht  vor  der  Auffassung,  ein 
selbst  verfehlter  Schritt  sei  soviel  als  ein  durch 
eignes  Verschulden  verfehlter  geschutzt  waren. 
Und  wenn  hundert  Kommentatoren  den  Schnitzer 
begehen,  dann  zeigeu  sie  eben  alle  hundert,  dass 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


237 


sie  ihre  Hande  vom  Koraraentieren  batten  lassen 
sollen.  Hier  braucht  es  keiner  grossen  syutak- 
tischen  Schulung  :  schon  das  Gef  iihl  muss  cinem 
sagen,  dass  eine  Bildung  selbst  verfehltcr  Schritt 
nach  Analogic  von  selbstgemachte  Wurst  usw.  un- 
moglich  1st.  Nicht  mal  in  ein  Wort  sincl  selbst 
und  verfehlt  geschrieben,  was  doch  unbedingt 
notig  ware.  Natiirlich  ist  H's  Auffassuug  im 
grossen  uud  ganzen  richtig  ;  der  Ton  hat  sclmell 
liber  die  Worte  ja  ein  selbst  hinwegzugleiten  und 
je  zur  Hiilfte  auf  verfehlter  und  Schritt  zu  fallen. 
Im  Ubrigen  bietet  jedes  Wort  H's  Anlass  zura 
Widerspruch. 

Es  liegt  keiue  gewaltsame,  urn  nicht  zu  sagen 
unmoglicheWortstellung  vor!   Selbst  brauchte  sich 
einzig  und  alleiu  auf  verfehlt  zu  beziehen  (modi- 
ficieren  nennt  H.  das  !).      Verfehlt  heisst  beinahe 
soviel  wie  '  uubeabsichtigt',  der  Gegensatz  ware 
also  '  beabsichtigt ' ;  '  Ein  sogar  unbeabsichtigter 
Schritt',  was,  pedautisch-arithinetisch  angesehen, 
noch  richtiger  wiire  als  '  sogar  ein  unb.  Schritt'. 
Und  wie  kiihn  ist  die  Behauptung,  es  ware  aus- 
sichtslos,  nach  Parallelen  fur  eine  solche  Sprach- 
willkur  ( !)  suchen  zu  wollen.     Jeder,   der  iiber 
eiue  bescheidene  Literaturkenntnis  verfiigt,  ver- 
mag  sie  zu   dutzenden   beizubringen.     Es  ware 
aussichtslos  .  .  .  suchen  zu  wollen  :  Herr  H.  sollte 
seiner  eignen  Sprache  seine  Bemiihungen  zuwen- 
den.     Zum  Gliick  ist  es  bisher  iibersehen,  dass  ein 
Schritt,  den  man  selbst  (und  kein  andrer)  verfehlt, 
eine  bose  Tautologie  ist !    Ein  verfehlter  Schritt, 
eine  verfehlte  Handlung,  kann  von  mir  oder  von 
irgend  einem  andern  herruhren  ;  dass  ein  Schritt 
immer  von  dem  getan  sein  muss,   der  von  ihm 
spricht,  leuchtet  mir  nicht  ein  ;  worin  liegt  also 
die  Tautologie  ? 

Und  nun  lese  man  von  dem  etwaa  (I)  kraft- 
genialischen  Satz  und  dem  ganzeii  in  Absatz  3 
herbeicitierten  Apparat !  Die  Stelle  ist  gewiss 
rhythmisch  ( !) :  Aber  ja  selbst  ein  verfehlter 
Schritt  giuge  nicht  an  !  Anderseits  passte  es  dem 
Sinne  nach  sehr  hiibsch,  wenn  es  hiesse  selbst  ein 
=  'selbst  ein  einziger  verfehlter  Schritt '.  Und 
dass  nicht  ein  Donnerschlag  etc.  gemeint  ist,  kann 
gar  keinen  Einfluss  auf  das  Folgende  haben,  im 
Gegenteil :  dem  umfasseudeu,  riesigen  elemen- 
taren  Ereignis  dort  wird  hier  ein  einzelnes  kleines 
gegeniibergestellt.  H.  widerspricht  sich  ja  auch 
selbst,  im  letzten  Satze  seines  vierten  Abschnitts. 


Weiter  :  Dern  Fatal ismus  Egmonts  wiirde  es 
durchaus  nicht  widersprechen,  wenn  er  auch  einen 
eignen  Fehlschritt  unter  die  Moglichkeiten  rech- 
nete,  die  ihn  stiirzen  konnten.  Ein  merkwiirdiger 
Fatalismus,  der  diese  Moglichkeit  ausschlosse  ! 
Aber  ich  frage  jetzt  :  \Ver  wiirde  denn  den  Fehl- 
schritt tun  ?  Doch  kein  andrer,  als  Egraont  selbst  ! 
Also  schliesst  er  ihn  in  die  Moglichkeiten  ein. 

Alles  Weitere,  was  H.  iiber  den  Fall  sagt,  soil 
mit  Schweigen  bedeckt  werden,  vor  allem  der 
kleine  Schlusssatz,  mit  Ubrigens  anfangend. 

Es  gibt  Stellen  im  Egmont,  an  denen  Inter- 
pretationskunst  sich  mit  grosserem  Rechte  ver- 
suchen  konnte,  als  diesen  hier.  Wo  kame  man 
hin,  wenn  man  alle  Einfachheiten  der  Art  be- 
sprechen  wollte  ! 

GEORG  SCHAAFFS. 

University  of  Si.  Andrews. 


SOME  EGMONT  INTERPRETATIONS 

In  the  June  issue  of  Modern  Language  Notes 
for  1911  Dr.  Hollander  tries  to  cast  new  light 
upon  several  passages  in  Goethe's  Egmont. 

Whether  he  has  succeeded  in  rescuing  the 
most  important  passages  from  the  Cimmerian 
darkness  of  misinterpretation  which  he  believes 
has  brooded  over  them  hitherto  remains  to  be 
seen. 

Most  of  us,  I  fear,  will  continue  to  think  ' '  ein 
selbst  verfehlter  Schritt ' '  a  false  step  for  which 
the  person  who  makes  it  is  responsible,  and  will  not 
be  frightened  by  any  apparition  of  a  '  bose  Tauto- 
logie.' At  any  rate,  we  hardly  dare  assume  that 
the  naturalistic  young  Goethe  would  say  'ein 
selbst  verfehlter  Schritt '  for  '  selbst  ein  verfehlter 
Schritt '  for  metrical  reasons. 

This  passage,  like  a  host  of  others  in  Goethe's 
works,  looks  backward  and  forward.  It  is  part 
of  the  organism  of  the  play,  not  merely  a  link  in 
the  chain  of  this  particular  conversation.  It  looks 
back  to  the  passage  :  "  Und  wenn  ich  ein  Nacht- 
wandler  ware,  und  auf  dem  gefahrlichen  Gipfel 
eines  Hauses  spazierte,  ist  es  freundschaftlich, 
mich  beim  Namen  zu  rufen  und  mich  zu  warnen, 
zu  wecken  und  zu  toten  ? ' '  When  under  the 
somnambulic  spell  the  self  is  so  controlled  and  so 


238 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[  Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


limited  in  its  impressions  of  the  outer  world,  that 
it  takes  the  dizzy  path  with  precision  ;  when 
wakened  from  the  trance,  the  self  is  brought  into 
complete  relation  to  the  outer  world,  and  delivered 
over  to  its  ordinary  judgment  of  the  complex  of 
impressions,  therefore  becomes  confused  and  un- 
certain and  liable  to  misstep.  Whose  the  respon- 
sibility ?  His  who  waked  him,  or  his  own  ?  Cer- 
tainly more  directly  his  own  than  that  of  the 
warner  ;  "  Ein  selbst  verfehlter  Schritt." 

It  looks  forward  to  that  crisis  in  Egmont's 
remarkable  career,  when  in  spite  of  the  amplest 
warnings  he  goes  confidingly  into  Alba's  well-laid 
trap,  and  is  executed,  the  victim  of  his  misjudg- 
ment  of  men  and  political  movements.  Again 
whose  false  step,  if  not  his  own  ? 

But  Dr.  Hollander  has  other  reasons  for  his 
very  forced  interpretation.  To  ascribe  responsi- 
bility to  Egmont  for  his  misstep,  is  inconsistent 
with  his  fatalism.  We  might  reply,  to  deny  his 
responsibility,  and  lay  the  blame  wholly  upon 
Fate,  i.  e,,  influences  wholly  external  to  himself, 
as  Dr.  Hollander  seems  to  understand  the  term, 
is  to  destroy  the  last  vestige  of  dramatic  struggle 
in  the  play  and  degrade  it  to  the  level  of  a  pure 
fate-drama.  It  is  certain  that  Goethe  never 
intended  his  spectators  and  readers  to  feel  that 
Egmont  is  not  responsible  for  the  rejection  of 
Orange's  warnings.  He  most  deliberately  rejects 
that  '  fremden  Tropfen  in  seinem  Blute '  and 
knowingly  seeks  the  one  '  freundlich  Mittel '  to 
drive  away  the  cares  which  Orange's  insistent 
words  have  caused. 

However,  '  Schicksal '  is  not  necessarily  '  rein 
ausserlich,'  as  Dr.  Hollander  seems  to  imply. 
'Soil  ich  fallen,'  may  refer  merely  to  a  future 
possibility,  an  unexpected  eventuality  which  may 
nevertheless  occur,  and  does  not  force  us  to  assume 
that  this  fall  is  to  be  an  act  of  external  fate. 
There  is  nothing  to  exclude  '  eigne  Schuld '  in 
the  assumption  of  a  possible  fall. 

Philosophically  we  may  be  determinists  without 
making  the  blunder  of  assuming  that  human  action 
is  wholly  conditioned  by  environment.  A  person 
is  as  much  a  reality  as  any  lifeless  thing,  and 
modifies  environment,  while  at  the  same  time 
undergoing  modification  by  environment.  Human 
action  is  always  this  resultant  of  personality  and 
environment.  Environment,  so  far  as  it  consists 


of  inanimate  nature,  is  absolutely  determined  ;  so 
far  as  it  consists  of  personal  wills,  it  is  in  the  same 
category  with  the  personality  in  question,  either 
free  or  determined.  The  student  of  human  affairs, 
who  considers  inheritance  and  early  education, 
and  realizes  what  character  and  habit  imply,  will 
be  inclined  to  believe  that  all  human  wills  are 
determined,  that  freedom  is  a  mere  figment  of  the 
ordinary  uninformed  intellect.  If  we  believe  that 
human  wills  are  predetermined  in  volition  by 
inherited  character  and  the  training  which  a 
home  or  a  community  has  forced  upon  them 
with  or  without  consent,  then  all  human  action 
must  be  assumed  as  determined.  The  fatalism  in 
Goethe' s  drama  is  something  of  this  sort.  It  does 
not  exclude  the  subjective  element,  nor  the  sense 
of  responsibility  for  what  arises  out  of  the  subjec- 
tive element,  though  the  analytic  intellect  may 
judge  such  responsibility  a  delusion. 

The  passages  in  Egmont  which  give  expression 
to  the  so-called  fatalism  of  Goethe  do  not  involve 
pure  externality  of  fate.  "O  was  sind  wir  Gro- 
szen  auf  der  Woge  der  Menschheit  ?  Wir  glauben 
sie  zu  beherrschen,  und  sie  treibt  uns  auf  und 
nieder,  hin  und  her."  Here  the  regent  is  ex- 
pressing a  common  delusion,  that  princes  govern 
their  peoples,  when  in  reality  they  have  to  shift 
and  drift  and  do  what  they  can,  not  always  what 
they  will.  It  is  the  same  notion  which  Egmont 
entertains  of  Alba's  coming  regency.  It  does  not 
imply  fatalism  at  all.  ' '  Wie  von  unsichtbaren 
Geistern  gepeitscht,  gehen  die  Sonnenpferde  der 
Zeit  mit  unseres  Schicksals  leichtem  Wagen  durch  ; 
und  uns  bleibt  nichts  als  mutig  gefaszt  die  Zugel 
festzuhalten  und  bald  rechts,  bald  links,  vomSteine 
hier,  vom  Sturze  da,  die  Udder  wegzulenken." 
A  measure  of  directive  power  is  left  to  the  indi- 
vidual after  all.  "  Es  glaubt  der  Mensch  sein 
Leben  zu  leiten,  und  sein  Innerstes  wird  unwi- 
derstehlich  nach  seinem  Schicksale  gezogen." 
Egmont  does  not  say,  and  can  not  and  dare  not 
say,  '  drawn  by  external  fate. '  When  Ferdinand 
says:  "  Du  hast  dich  selber  getotet,"  Egmont 
admits,  ' '  Ich  war  gewarnt. ' ' 

The  fate  which  leads  Egmont  to  ruin  is  his  own 
character.  If  such  a  character  makes  a  false  step 
and  plunges  into  ruin,  it  is  certainly  '  ein  selbst 
verfehlter  Schritt '  and  we  can  not  make  it  other- 
wise by  referring  to  the  '  demonic  element. '  The 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


239 


demonic  element  is  just  this  unanalyzable  self,  this 
character,  this  personality,  which  seems  to  itself 
so  free,  and  yet  is  so  bound  by  its  own  nature  that 
it  works  out  its  own  destiny  in  incalculable  ways 
in  union  with  environment. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  either  the  '  unspeakable 
prosiness'  of  this  conception,  or  a  descent  from 
the  'sublime  to  the  ridiculous.' 

With  respect  to  the  third  passage,  I  fear  that 
Dr.  Hollander  injects  too  much  subtle  meaning 
into  it.  Egmont  is  not  talking  statecraft  or  moral 
philosophy  with  Kliirchen.  When  the  latter  re- 
fers to  Egmont' s  relations  to  the  regent  she  is 
in  all  probability  probing  a  relationship  which 
Egmont  himself  later  calls  '  Freundschaft,  die 
fast  Liebe  war.'  When  Egmont  declares  that 
the  regent  always  seeks  '  Geheimnisse  hinter 
seinem  Betragen,'  whereas  he  has  none,  she  asks 
teasingly  (with  reference  to  Egmont' s  love  for 
herself),  '  so  gar  keine  ? '  He  replies,  taking  her 
cue  :  "Eh  nun  !  Einen  kleinen  Hinterhalt. ' '  If 
this  refers  to  Egmont' s  love  for  Kliirchen,  which 
is  not  worn  on  his  sleeve  for  daws  to  peck  at,  then 
the  '  Weinstein '  passage  does  not  require  such 
subtle  analysis.  The  meaning  must  not  be  beyond 
the  intellectual  reach  of  Klarchen.  The  simplest 
interpretation  might  prove  the  best.  Every  indi- 
vidual, in  the  course  of  time,  enters  into  various 
private  relations  which  are  nobody  else' s  business. 
They  are  the  peculiar  deposits  of  the  individual's 
life.  Goethe  was  usually  rather  fortunate  in  his 
use  of  comparisons,  and  was  well  enough  ac- 
quainted with  wine  to  distinguish  between  crys- 
tals and  dregs.  The  formation  of  '  Weinsteiu  ' 
does  not  make  the  wine  '  tru'be, '  and  so  tie  new 
interpretation  rests  upon  the  gratuitous  assump- 
tion of  ignorance  on  Goethe's  part. 


JOHN  WILLIAM  SCROLL. 


University  of  Michigan. 


A  LATIN   COUNTERPART  OF  THE  ST. 
LEGER  STROPHE 

The  poem  of  St.  Leger,  which  is  supposed  to 
have  been  written  at  Autun  (Saone-et-Loire)  in 
the  last  part  of  the  tenth  century,  consists,  as  we 
know,  of  strophes  of  six  octosyllabic  lines  which 


rhyme  or  assonance  two  by  two  (j^bcc)-  The 
musical  notation  which  accompanies  it  in  its 
single  manuscript,  and  its  own  expressions  also, 
shows  that  it  was  composed  for  singing.1  In 
terms  of  Latin  prosody  the  verse  is  iambic  dimeter. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  line  presents  a  regular  al- 
ternation of  unaccented  and  accented  syllables, 
exception  being  made  for  the  two  lines  which 
begin  with  ' '  Domine  Deu. ' ' 2 

Now,  because  the  poem  was  sung,  and  also 
because  its  nature  is  religious  and  hortatory,  there 
is  every  reason  to  suppose  it  was  patterned  on  a 
model  furnished  it  by  some  Latin  hymn.  That 
the  records  of  Latin  hymnology  may  not  have  yet 
disclosed  any  exact  prototype  would  not  constitute 
any  serious  objection  to  this  view.8  For  already 
in  the  seventh  century  the  Bangor  antiphonary 
(about  690)  knew  a  hymn  which  corresponds 
quite  closely  to  St.  Leger,  composed  as  it  is  of 
strophes  of  six  octosyllabic  lines  in  monorhyme, 
with  a  refrain  of  two  similar  lines.*  Wilhelm 

1  We  would  recall  the  words  of  the  first  strophe  : 
Domine  Deu  devemps  lauder 
Et  a  BOS  sancz  honor  porter. 
In  su  amor  cantomps  del  sanz 
Quae  por  lui  augrent  granz  aanz. 
Et  or  es  temps  et  si  est  biens 
Quae  nos  cantumps  de  sant  Lethgier. 

Graphically  this  particular  strophe  would  read 


etc. 


But  in  the  larger  number  of  strophes  the  first  line  agrees 
rhythmically  with  the  other  five  : 

\J-U-\J-V-, 

so  that  we  would  have  here  an  example  of  what  J.  B. 
Beck  calls  the  second  form  of  the  first  modus  (Die  MeJa- 
dien  der  Troubadours,  p.  116). 

*See  note  1.  This  was  not  Gaston  Paris'  opinion  when 
he  discussed  the  versification  of  St.  Leycr  in  Romania,  i, 
pp.  292-296.  For  at  that  time  he  found  three  different 
accentual  schemes  : 


and  rarely  u^wiu^ui. 

It  ia  this  third  scheme,  considered  least  frequent  by 

Paris,  which  seems  to  me  the  standard. 

'Gaston  Paris  (I.  c.)  says  indeed  that  there  are  such 
models,  but  fails  to  cite  them.  My  own  reading  has  been 
too  restricted  to  be  relied  upon. 

*F.  E.  Warren,  Antiphonary  of  Bangor  (London,  1895), 
ii,  p.  37.  The  first  strophe  contains  eight  octosyllabic 
lines.  I  quote  the  second,  which  offers  the  regular  form  : 


240 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


Meyer,  from  whom  I  took  this  reference,  gives 
the  measure  of  this  hymn  as  iambic  dimeter.6 
But  it  does  not  observe  coincidence  of  quantity 
and  accent.  On  the  other  hand,  it  consistently 
reveals  four  accents  to  a  line  in  both  strophe  and 
refrain,  and  we  might  therefore  infer  a  rhythm 
made  up  of  an  alternation  of  weak  and  strong 
tones,  or  graphically  uLvLuLuL,  a  rhythm  which 
holds  for  every  strophe.  If  this  inference  is  cor- 
rect, the  Baugor  hymn  is  not  far  removed  from 
the  tone  scheme  of  St.  Leger. 

Between  the  end  of  the  seventh  century  and 
the  end  of  the  tenth  there  was  time  and  to  spare. 
During  this  interval  we  may  suppose  that  devout 
poets  did  not  fail  to  write  hymns  in  strophes  of 
six  octosyllabic  lines  with  alternation  of  weak 
and  strong  tones.  That  these  compositions  were 
not  numerous  may  be  argued  from  their  absence 
from  many  standard  collections,  though  this 
absence  may  be  due  to  accident  only  and  riot  to 
any  lack  of  popularity.  But  to  go  further  and 
assume  the  existence  of  strophes  divided,  as  the 
St.  Leger  strophe  is,  into  groups  of  lines  rhyming 
together,  requires  more  proof  than  mere  corre- 
spondence in  length  of  strophe  and  verse  accentu- 
ation would  furnish.  And  it  is  for  the  purpose 
of  strengthening  the  general  assumption  that  St. 
Leger  had  a  Latin  model  that  I  would  call  atten- 
tion to  a  Latin  strophe  of  like  structure  and  of 
the  same  approximate  date. 

In  the  year  997  Gerbert,  archbishop  of  Rheims, 
sent  a  copy  of  Boethius'  Arithmetica  to  Otto  III, 
the  young  emperor  of  Germany.  With  the  vol- 
ume went  also  some  verse  of  Gerbert' s  own.  Otto 
answered  the  gift  with  a  letter  and  the  archbish- 
op's poetry  with  a  stanza,  in  which  he  regrets  his 
deficient  training  in  poetical  composition,  a  de- 
ficiency which  he  promises  to  atone  for  in  the 
near  future  : 

Amavit  Christus  Comgillum, 
Bene  et  ipse  Dominum 
Carura  habuit  Beognoum 
Domnum  ornavit  Aedeum, 
Elegit  sanctum  Sinlanum 
Faraosum  mundi  magistrum. 
Refrain  :  Quos  convocavit  Dominus 
Coelorum  regni  sedibus. 


Versus  numquam  composui, 
Nee  in  studio  habui. 
Dura  in  usu  habuero, 
Et  in  eis  viguero, 
Quot  habet  viros  Gallia, 
Tot  vobis  mittam  carmina.6 

In  number  of  lines  to  the  strophe,  in  number 
of  syllables  to  the  line  and  in  the  arrangement  of 
rhymes  Otto's  maiden  attempt,  as  we  see,  is  a 
strict  counterpart  to  the  framework  of  St.  Leger. 
Of  course  there  is  this  difference  that  Otto's  verse 
was  to  be  read  and  not  sung.  And  because  it 
was  to  be  read,  perhaps,  the  accentual  scheme 
seems  to  vary.  For  the  first  four  lines  it  would 
be  ^u^uu^uu,  for  the  last  two  ^uu^u^uu  or 
u.iuiu.£uu,7  it  being  understood  that  the  signs 
mean  accented  and  unaccented  syllables  respect- 
ively, and  not  long  and  short.  Now  this  very 
variation  in  the  accents  of  the  stanza  is  a  proof  of 
the  care  with  which  Otto  counted  his  syllables. 
They  remain  the  same  in  number  throughout, 
whatever  changes  of  accents  the  lines  undergo. 
Otto's  model  is  not  known.  It  could  not  be  one 
of  Gerbert' s  strophes,  for  they  are  metrical.  But 
his  model  must  have  resembled,  in  all  essentials, 
the  model  of  the  St.  Leger,  and  both  models 
probably  belonged  to  the  same  period. 


F.  M.  WARREN. 


Yale  University. 


PETER  BUCHAN  AND  IT  WAS  A'   FOR 
OUR  RIGHTFU'  KING 

In  commenting  on  Burns' s  Jacobite  song,  It 
Was  A'  for  Our  Rightfu'  King,  the  editors  of  the 
Centenary  Edition  of  Burns' s  poetry  write  as 
follows  : 

"The  facsimile  of  the  MS.  of  this  noble  and 
moving  lyric  was   published  in   Scott  Douglas's 
Edinburgh   Edition  ;    and   in   stanza   v,  line    3, 
there  is  a  deleted   reading — '  Upon  my  abs  '  - 
showing   that   Burns   changed    the   line    in   the 

6  J.  Ha  vet,  Lettres  de  Gerbert  (Paris,  1889),  p.  172. 

'Undoubtedly  Otto  followed  the  same  model  as  St. 
Leger.  For  were  his  strophe  to  be  sung,  the  lines  would 
show  four  accents  : 


5  Gesammelte  Abhandlungen, 
Grundriss,  IT,  p.  112. 


I,  p.  221  ;    also  Grober, 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


241 


process  of  copying  out.  Apart  from  this,  the 
touch  of  the  master,  either  as  marker  or  as  editor 
and  vamper,  is  manifest  throughout.  Yet  Hogg, 
in  his  Jacobite  Relics,  gravely  informs  you  that 
'  it  is  said  to  have  been  written  by  Captain 
Ogilvie,'  of  Invergubarity,  who  fought  for  James 
VII  at  the  Battle  of  the  Boyne  in  1690. l  Who 
said  it  ?  or  when  and  where  was  it  said  ?  All  that 
Hogg  leaves  to  the  imagination.  It  was  certainly 
not  said  by  either  Burns  or  Johnson  (who  must 
have  known  ;  for  there  is  no  earlier  copy  than 
that  which  was  written  by  Bums,  and  published 
in  the  Museum').  We  can  scarce  go  wrong  in 
assuming  that  Hogg's  informant  was  Peter 
Buchan.  Now,  neither  Hogg  nor  Buchan  knew 
that  Burns  had  sent  the  thing  to  the  Museum. 
Moreover,  his  name  had  never  been  associated 
with  it.  Thus,  the  ingenious  Buchan,  still  bent 
on  fathering  everything  on  somebody,  had  full 
scope  for  his  idiosyncrasy.  .  .  .  Moreover,  Hogg's 
statement,  not  only  lacks  the  thinnest  shadow  of 
corroboration,  but  is  demonstrably  false  ;  for  the 
song  in  the  Museum  is  modelled  on  the  same 
originals  as  A  Red  Red  Rose2  ;  and  these,  as  we 
have  seen,  trace  back  to  the  blackletter  Unkind 
Parents,  published,  as  Mr.  Ebsworthe  points  out 


{Roxburgh*  Ballads,  vii.  554),  before  Captain 
Ogilvie  could  ever  have  '  turn'd  him  right  and 
round  about  Upon  the  Irish  shore.'  "  * 

The  rest  of  the  note  in  the  Centenary  deals  with 
the  relations  between  Burns' s  lyric  and  the  chap- 
book  ballad  Molly  Stewart,  and  shows  clearly  the 
use  Burns  made  of  the  earlier  song. 

The  passage  in  this  note  to  which  I  wish  to  call 
attention,  is  that  which  ascribes  to  Peter  Buchan 
the  ' '  fathering  ' '  of  the  song  upon  Captain  Ogil- 
vie. This  ascription,  I  am  convinced,  is  quite 
unwarranted,  for  if  Buchan  had  ever  thought  of 
Ogilvie  in  this  connection,  he  could  hardly  have 
failed  to  make  some  reference  to  him  in  the  notes 
to  the  song,  a  version  of  which  is  among  the 
unpublished  pieces  in  the  Harvard  University, 
Buchan  Ms.  no.  25241.  10.  5.4  Neither  this  re- 
daction nor  Buchan's  comment  on  it  has  ever 
been  published,  so  far  as  I  can  ascertain.  I  there- 
fore reprint  them  entire,  placing  Burns' s  Museum 
version,  the  original,  parallel. 


BUCHAN 

It's  for  our  gude  an'  rightfu'  king, 
I  cross' d  fair  Scotland's  strand  ; 

It's  for  our  gude  an'  rightfu'  king 
I  e'er  saw  Irish  land,  my  dear, 
I  e'er  saw  Irish  land. 

Now  a'  is  dane  that  can  be  dane, 

And  a'  is  dane  in  vain  ; 
Fareweel  my  luve  an'  native  land, 

Now  I  maun  cross  the  main,  my  dear, 
Now  I  maun  cross  the  main. 


BURNS 

It  was  a'  for  our  rightfu'  king 
We  left  fair  Scotland's  strand  ; 

It  was  a'  for  our  rightfu'  king, 
We  e'er  saw  Irish  land, 

My  dear — 
We  e'er  saw  Irish  land. 

Now  a'  is  done  that  men  can  do, 

And  a'  is  done  in  vain, 
My  love  and  Native  Land  fareweel, 

For  I  maun  cross  the  main, 
My  dear — 

For  I  maun  cross  the  main. 


1  Hogg's  note,  vol.  I,  p.  186,  reads  as  follows:  "This 
song  is  traditionally  said  to  have  been  written  by  a  Cap- 
tain Ogilvie,  related  to  the  house  of  Invergubarity,  who 
was  with  King  James  in  his  Irish  Expedition,  and  was  in 
the  battle  of  the  Boyne.  He  was  a  brave  man,  and  fell 
in  an  engagement  on  the  Khine."  The  rest  of  Hogg's 
note  has  no  reference  to  the  authorship  of  the  song. 

1  It  is  hard  to  see  why  the  editors  drag  in  these  various 
songs,  which  surely  did  contribute  to  A  Red  Red  Rose,  as 
models  for  It  Was  A'  for  Our  Rightfu'  King,  when  the 
relationship  between  the  latter  and  Mally  Stewart,  is,  as 


they  point  out,  much  closer.    At  least,  the  word  "  model- 
led" is  misleading. 

3  Centenary,  in.  433.    In  this  connection  one  is  tempted 
to  ask  whether,  if  the  Unkind  Parents  was  certainly  pub- 
lished before  Captain  Ogilvie  reached  Ireland,  he  might 
not  have  used   it  as    a  model,  supposing  him,  for  the 
moment,  to  have  written  the  song  ? 

4  This  MS.  contains  material  which  Buchan  published  as 
Ancient  Ballads  and  Songs  of  the  Noiih  of  Scotland,  2  vols., 
Edinburgh,  1828,  and  a  number  of  pieces  which  he  with- 
held from  the  press. 


242 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


He  turn'd  his  high  horse  head  about 

All  on  the  Irish  shore  ; 
An'  gae  the  bridal  reins  a  shake, 

Says, — Adieu  for  evermore,  my  dear, 
Says, — Adieu  for  evermore. 


Now  sodgers  frae  the  wars  return, 
An'  sailors  frae  the  main  ; 

But  I  maun  part  wi*  my  true  love, 
Nae  mair  to  meet  again,  my  dear, 
Nae  mair  to  meet  again. 


Fan  day  is  gane,  an  night  is  come, 

An'  a  fa' in  fast  asleep  ; 
I  maun  spend  my  silent  hours 

For  my  true  love  to  weep,  my  dear, 
For  my  true  love  to  weep.5 

Buchan's  note  is  as  follows  : 

' '  This  beautiful  ballad  I  took  down  from  the 
recitation  of  old  James  Ranken,  who  had  learned 
it  in  his  early  years.  My  reason  for  particulariz- 
ing the  reciter  of  this  ballad  more  than  any  of 
the  others  is,  that  since  it  was  taken  down,  I  have 
found  a  copy  of  it  very  much  alike,  in  the  notes 
to  Canto  third  of  Rokeby,  a  Poem,7  from  which 
some  people  might  have  imagined  I  had  copied  it. 
The  author  of  Rokeby,  Walter  Scott,  Esq.,  now 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  seems  to  think  this  ballad  relates 
to  the  fortunes  of  some  follower  of  the  Steuart 
family.  How  far  the  worthy  baronet  is  right,  I 
will  not  pretend  to  say.  Everyone  has  a  right  to 
judge,  though  not  condemn,  as  he  pleases."  8 

The  existence  of  this  "Rankinized"  version 
of  Burns' s  song, — for  there  can  be  no  doubt,  I 
believe,  that  the  stanzas  Rankin  recited  are 
simply  clumsily  disguised  plagiarisms,9 — and  of 

6  Buchan  MS.,  p.  729.  6  Centenary,  m,  182. 

'This  is  Burns's  song,  of  which  Scott  seems  uncon- 
sciously to  have  lifted  four  lines.  He  printed  the  entire 
song  in  his  notes.  See  the  Oxford  edition  of  Scott's 
poems,  p.  394. 

8  Buchan  MS.  ,  Notes,  p.  219. 

9  If  one  were  inclined  to  believe  in  the  genuineness  of 
the  version  which  Buchan  himself  later  came  to  suspect, 
a  fact  indicated  by  his  suppressing  the  song  when  he  pub- 
lished his  two  volumes  in  1828,  I  should  point  out  to 
him  (1)  that  the  song  does  not  appear  in  print  till  Vol. 
v  of  the  Museum  was  published,  in  1796,  before  which 
time  no  one  seems  to  have  dreamed  of  its  existence  ; 
(2)  that  the  differences  between  the  two  versions  in  stanza 
3,  line  1,  and  in  stanza  5,  lines  1  and  2,  indicate  pretty 


He  turn'd  him  right  and  round  about 

Upon  the  Irish  shore, 
And  gae  his  bridle  reins  a  shake, 

With  adieu  for  evermore, 
My  dear — 

And  adieu  for  evermore ! 

The  sodger  frae  the  war  returns, 

The  sailor  frae  the  main, 
But  I  hae  parted  frae  my  love 

Never  to  meet  again, 
My  dear — 

Never  to  meet  again. 

When  day  is  gane,  and  night  is  come, 

And  a'  folk  bound  to  sleep, 
I  think  on  him  that's  far  awa 

The  lee-lang  night,  and  weep, 
My  dear — 

The  lee-lang  night  and  weep.6 

Buchan's  note,  is  interesting,  since  it  relieves 
Buchan  of  responsibility  for  the  Ogilvie  myths. 
He  will  not  ' '  even  pretend  to  say ' '  whether  or 
not  the  song  refers  to  the  fortunes  of  the  Stuarts  ; 
had  he  dreamed  of  foisting  the  lyric  upon  the 
unfortunate  cavalier,  surely  he  would  not  have 
written  as  he  did  in  his  MS. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Buchan  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  guilty  of  intentional  misrepresentation 
concerning  the  songs  and  ballads  he  published. 
James  Rankine,  the  blind  beggar  whom  he  hired 
as  collector,  was  notoriously  untrustworthy,  and 
occasionally  deceived  his  employer.  But  Buchan 
intended  to  be  honest.  James  Hogg,  on  the  other 
hand,  delighted  in  deception  ;  his  Jacobite  Relics 
are  full  of  egregious  misstatements.  To  him  we 
may  safely  look  as  the  author  of  the  Ogilvie 
legend,  but  not  to  Peter  Buchan,  whose  name  the 
editors  of  the  Centenary  Burns  seem  pleased  to 
connect  with  Hogg's. 

FKANKLYN  BLISS  SNYDEB, 

Northwestern  University. 

clearly  that  Burns's  version  is  the  older.  In  these  lines 
Burns  was  using,  quite  characteristically,  the  ordinary 
language  of  the  popular  ballads.  (For  examples  of 
"  turning  right  and  round  about"  see  Young  Hunting,  A, 
16  ;  Willie  and  Lady  Maissy,  B,  15  ;  Johnie  Scot,  A,  14 ; 
James  Harris,  F,  3  ;  for  parallels  to  the  other  lines  re- 
ferred to  consult  Prof.  Child's  list  of  commonplaces.) 
The  changes  must  have  been  made  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
guise. Were  it  necessary,  more  arguments  to  the  same 
effect  might  easily  be  added. 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


243 


A  MEDITATION  UPON  DEATH,  FOR 

THE  TOMB  OF  RALPH,  LORD 

CROMWELL  (C.  1450), 

LORD  TREASURER 

OF  ENGLAND 

(O  Mors,  Quam  Amara  est  Meraoria  Tua) 
MS.  B.  M.  Harley,  116,  fols.  152b-153b. 

fol.  152b] 

O]  deth,  bough  better  ys  the  mynde  of  the, 
That  mover  arte  of  moornynge  &  of  moon  ; 

Thou  myndly  myrrowr,  in  whom  all  olde  may  see 

The  ways  of  youthe,  in  which  thai  haue  mysgone. 
5      Thou  arte  the  same  remembrauncer  allone, 

Whom  all  astates  and  euery  lawe  degre 
With  daily  diligence  owe  to  awaite  vpon, 

For  when  thou  clepiste  all  muste  go  with  the. 


Nought  may  preuayle,  pompous  prosperite, 
10      Honour,  ne  heele,  gemme  ne  precious  stone, 
Benoun,  riches,  rent,  ne  rialte, 

For  all  that  euer  haue  be  of  fleshe  &  bone 
Thou  hast,  and  wolt  consume,  not  leuyng  oon, 
Who  is  alyve  that  can  remembre  thee 
15      That  ar  preserued  ?  y  finde  two  allone, 
Ennok  and  Ely,  yit  shall  thai  go  wit/t  the. 

3 

For  in  the  oure  of  cure  natiuite 
Thi  subtile  entre  vs  perseth  euerychone, 

With  cleym  continuell  chalenginge  thi  fe, 
20      And  euery  day  we  muste  waite  here  vpon, 
And  while  we  lyve  ;  yit  haue  we  odir  foon, 

The  feende,  the  flesh,  and  worldly  vanite, 
Cotidiane  corasy,  continvinge  euer  in  oone, 

Oure  cely  soule  vnceesingly  to  sle. 


25  Popes  and  prelates  stand  in  perplexite, 

And  curyus  clarkis,  forth  with  the  thai  gone, 
Crowned  conquerours  and  odir  of  law  degre, 
Knyghtly  in  hir  tymes  ;  thou  sparith  noon, 
Marchauntes,  men  of  lawe,  all  vnder  oone, 
30  Leches,  laborers,  fayne  wolde  fro  the  fle, 
fol.  153a] 

Full  wyse  is  he  that  can  thinke  her  vpon, 
And  for  him  selfe  provide,  who  so  he  be. 


Beholde  this  myrrour  in  thi  mynde,  &  se 

This  worldis  transsitorie  Joy  that  sone  is  gone, 
35  Which  in  effecte  is  but  aduersite, 

And  of  twey  weys  thou  nedis  must  take  oone. 
Thenk  of  fre  choise,  god  hath  the  lent  allone 


With  witte  and  reson  to  reule  thi  liberte, 
Yif  thou  go  mys,  odir  blame  thou  none, 
40  Thi  selfe  arte  cause  of  all  that  grevith  the. 

6 
O  ye,  that  floure  in  hie  felicite, 

For  crystes  sake  remembreth  her  vpon, 
Thenke  that  as  fresh  and  lusty  as  ye  be, 

Er  thei  wer  war,  full  sodanly  haue  gone, 
45      For  odir  warnyng  in  this  world  is  none, 
But  mynde  of  deth  or  sore  infirm  ite  ; 

When  thou  lest  wenest,  thou  shall  be  calde  vpon, 
For  of  thine  houre  thou  woste  no  certeinte. 


This  worthi  lorde,  of  very  polyce, 

50      Sir  Raufe  lorde  Cromwell,  remembringe  her  vpon, 
For  all  his  lordshipp  and  gret  stately  se 
Knowinge,  by  resoun,  of  oder  rescous  none, 
For  all  his  castelles  &  toures  hie  of  stone, 
For  him,  and  for  my  lady,  like  as  ye  se, 
55      This  towmebe  prouyded,  ayen  that  thei  shall  gone, 
In  gracius  oure  gode  granule  hir  passage  be! 

8 
Muse  in  this  mirrour  of  mortalite, 

Bothe  olde  and  yonge,  that  loken  her  opon, 
Lyfte  vp  your  hertly  eie,  be-holde  and  se 
60      These  same  right  worthi,  restinge  vndir  the  stone, 

Deuoutly  pray  for  hem  to  criste  allone  153b] 

That  gyltles  for  hir  gylte  sterfe  on  a  tre, 

Hem  to  preserue  from  all  hir  gostely  foon, 
And  send  hem  pees  in  perpetuite. 

Amen. 

Collation  of  Ma.  B.  M.  Cotton,  Caligula,  A,  n, 
fols.  SSb-SGa.1 

1  how.  bytter.  2  meuere.  mornyng.  mone.  of 
[2]  om.  3  mynly.  old.  se.  4  wayes.  whych.  goon. 

5  art.  remembrauncer]  C.  remembrance  H.  aloon. 

6  states  (sic),   (given  as  doates  in  Varnhagen's 
text,    and   naturally  "ganz  unverstandlich "  !) 
low.    7  dayly.  dylygence.  weyte.   8  whan,  clepest. 
goo.    9  pompys  ne  prosperyte.    10  hele.  precyous. 
11  ryches.  ryalte.    12  For]  But  C.  flesch.   13  wylt. 
leugngoori]  C.  lyvinge  H.    14  kan.    15  fynde.  but 
two  aloon.     16  $yt  shall  they.     17  yn.  natyuyte. 
18  They,  sotell.  perschet.  euery chon.     19  Wyth. 
cleyin]  C.   clene  H.    contynuell.  chalyngyng.  |>y. 
20  most,  wayte.  ther.     21  The  whyle.  $yt.  tue] 
om.   C.  ofer.     22  fende.  flesch.  wordly  vanyte. 
23  Cotydyane  corosy  contynuyng  euer  yn  oon. 

'Printed  from  Caligula — without  knowledge  of  the 
Harley  text — by  H.  Varnbagen  in  Anglia  vn,  Anzeiger 
85. 


244 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


24  sely.  vnsesingly.  25  and]  om.  yn.  prosperyte. 
26  curyous  clerkes.  they.  27  low.  olper.  28  ]>a£ 
wer  ry^t  kny^tly  yn  bar  tyme.  spareth  non.  29 
oon.  30  labererea.  fayn.  wold.  31  kan.  theiik. 
32  hyrnself.  prouyde.  who  that.  33  Behold,  thys. 
wit/tyn  thyself  and.  34  Thys.  world  ys  traussi- 
torie.  Joye.  gon.  35  Which  yn.  ys.  aduersyte. 
36  two  wayes.  most  nedyst.  chese  oon.  37  choyes. 
lent]  yeue.  alon.  38  wyt.  rule,  thy  lyberte.  39 
goo  mysse.  other,  non.  40  Thy  self.  art.  all, 
etc.]  thyn  ynyquyte.  41  Oo.  yn  hye  felycyte. 
42  remembryth.  apon.  43  Thenk.  that]  om. 
flesch.  and]  as.  lusty  folke  as  ye.  44  they,  wher 
war.  sodenly.  hau.  45  other,  yn  thys.  ys.  non. 
46  mynd.  yfyrmyte.  47  And  whan  ye  leest  wene 
ye  way.  calde  apon.  48  your  tyme  ys  sette  non 
serteynte.  49-56  C.  omits  this  stanza.  57  Thys. 
myrrour.  mortalyte.  58  old.  yong.  loketh  apon. 
59  eye.  behold.  60  Thenk  all  mankend  schall 
reste  vnder  erthe  &  stone.  01  Therefor  I  pray 
me.  cryste  alon.  62  That  for  our  alther  gylt  deyd 
vpon  a  tre.  63  Vs.  fro.  owr.  gostly  for.  64  vs. 
yn.  perpetuyte.  Amen  For  charite. 


.  —  There  were  three  Crom  wells,  father, 
son,  and  grandson  who  bore  the  Christian  name 
Ralph.  Their  seat  was  at  Tattershall  in  Lincoln- 
shire, twelve  miles  northwest  of  Boston.  The 
Norman  castle  was  rebuilt  by  Sir  Ralph  3d,  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VI.  He  likewise  erected  a 
lofty  tower,  with  a  spiral  staircase,  four  miles  to 
the  north  of  his  castle.  The  reference  in  line  53 
seems  therefore  to  point  directly  to  this  baron, 
who  was  much  the  most  prominent  man  of  the 
three,  rising  to  be  Treasurer  of  the  Realm.  In 
17  Henry  VI,  Lord  Cromwell  founded  the  Col- 
lege of  Tattershall,  an  act  of  piety  which  may 
well  have  commended  him  to  the  priestly  writer 
of  these  lines.  Associated  with  him  in  this  was 
Judge  William  Paston  (Dugdale,  Monasticon,  ed. 
1846,  vi,  1432)  who  was,  I  have  elsewhere 
tried  to  show,  a  patron  of  Lydgate.  This  Lyd- 
gatian  poem,  while  probably  not  by  the  monk,  is 
strongly  reminiscent  of  his  work,  and  apparently 
influenced  by  his  Dance  of  Machabree. 

Sir  Ralph's  tomb,  though  not  in  its  original 
position,  and  sadly  mutilated,  is  still  in  the  Church 
of  his  College.  While  our  poem  is  the  only  evi- 
dence that  the  tomb  was  erected  during  his  life- 


time, it  is  known  that  his  niece's  tomb  was  so 
erected,  from  a  clause  in  her  will,  and  from  the 
cutting  of  the  date  of  her  decease.  The  practice 
was  common.  The  inscription  on  Sir  Ralph's 
tomb,  half  of  which  is  lacking,  as  one  brass  plate 
is  gone,  reads  as  follows  : 

Hie  jacet  Nobilis  Baro  Kadulphus  Cromw 
[ell  Miles  dris  de  Cromwell  quodm  Thesaurarius] 

Anglic  et  fundator  huius  Collegii  cum  inclite 
[Consorte  sua  Margareta  et  una  hered'   dm  dayncourt] 

qui  quidm  Kadulphus  obiit  quarto  die  mes  Jan- 
[uarii  Anno  dui  Milli°  CCCC  LV«  Et  p'dict  Margareta] 

obiit  XVo  die  mes  Septebre  Anno  dni  Milli0  CC 
[CC  liiii  Quor'  aiabs  p'picietur  Deus    Amen.] 

The  Caligula  text,  printed  by  Varnhagen  in 
Anglia  years  ago,  lacks  the  all-important  stanza 
about  the  Cromwells,  and  otherwise  alters  the 
poem  to  admit  of  a  general  application.  It  is 
evident  that  the  poem  in  the  earlier  form  was 
written  to  hang  by  the  tomb  until  the  inscription 
should  be  needed  to  record  the  demise  of  its 
builders.  So  far  as  I  know,  this  is  the  only  speci- 
men in  English  mediaeval  literature  of  this  use 
of  poetry.  Many  of  Lydgate' s  pieces  were  writ- 
ten to  hang  before  images  such  as  a  crucifix,  a 
"Pity,"  or  the  like  ;  but  none  for  this  purpose. 
A  representation  of  the  Dance  of  Death  may  have 
accompanied  the  Cromwell  poem. 

A  second  unique  feature  of  this  poem  is  its 
rhyme-scheme  ababbaba,  with  the  whole  poem 
written  on  two  rhymes. 

I  am  indebted  to  the  Rev.  F.  M.  Yglesias, 
rector  of  Tattershall,  for  the  tomb  inscription  and 
other  details  concerning  it. 


HENRY  NOBLE  MACCKACKEN. 


Yale  University. 


Three  Philosophical  Poets — Lucretius,  Dante,  and 
Goethe.  (Harvard  Studies  in  Comparative 
Literature,  Vol.  i.)  By  GEORGE  SANTA YANA. 
Harvard  University,  1910.  Pp.  viii  +  215, 

"Comparative  Literature"  is  a  notoriously 
unhappy  term  to  have  been  devised  (or  mis- 
translated) by  reputable  scholars,  in  order  to 
designate  the  study  of  the  intellectual  relations 
between  different  peoples.  But  the  name  chances 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


245 


to  have  a  somewhat  literal  applicability  to  the 
volume  with  which  the  new  series  founded  by 
Professor  Schofield  auspiciously  opens.  Professor 
Santayana's  book  is  a  contribution  rather  to  liter- 
ature than  to  learning.  It  is  a  comparison  and 
criticism  of  three  typical  criticisms  of  life,  written 
by  a  somewhat  untechnical  and  temperamental 
philosopher  who  is  also  a  poet  and  a  master  of 
English  prose  style.  The  author  is,  indeed, 
hardly  so  innocent  of  erudition,  at  least  in  the 
section  on  Dante,  as  in  his  preface  he  modestly 
gives  himself  out  to  be.  But  '  scholarship  '  is  for 
Mr.  Santayana  a  means  to  an  end,  and  a  means 
not  to  be  accumulated  beyond  the  requirements 
of  the  end.  It  is  the  fruit  of  reflection,  not  of 
research,  that  he  offers.  It  is,  perhaps,  not  wholly 
fortunate  that  the  book  is  published  as  one  of  a 
series  of  learned  works,  since  it  is  on  that  account 
a  little  less  likely  to  reach  the  general  public. 
And  though  it  is  a  book  which  no  specialist  in 
Lucretius  or  Dante  or  Goethe  can  afford  to  leave 
unread,  it  should  appeal  also  to  a  far  wider  circle 
of  readers. 

The  criticism  is  by  no  means  impressionistic. 
It  has  behind  it  the  matured  philosophy  of  the 
five  volumes  of  The  Life  of  Reason.  That  philos- 
ophy has  been  described  as  a  humanistic  mate- 
rialism. Primary  in  it  is  a  radical  cleavage 
between  facts  and  values,  reality  and  human 
ideals.  Nature  is  an  exclusively  mechanical 
system.  Yet  upon  it,  or  within  it,  there  has 
somehow  supervened  a  system  of  values  :-  the 
preferences,  tastes,  rational  estimates  of  good  and 
bad,  characteristic  of  man's  mental  life.  To  all 
natural  processes  these  evaluations  are  curiously 
irrelevant;  for  in  his  most  consistent  moments. 
Mr.  Sautayana  recognizes  that  eveu  human  nature 
in  all  its  external  expressions  is  but  a  part  of 
nature,  and  therefore  a  part  of  the  cosmic  ma- 
chine ;  "consciousness"  (of  which  volition  is 
an  aspect),  he  has  said,  is  merely  "  a  lyric  cry 
in  the  midst  of  business. ' '  Yet  it  would  be  too 
much  to  expect  a  mechanistic  philosopher  who  is 
also  a  moralist  to  adhere  to  the  rigor  of  this  doc- 
trine ;  upon  human  action  his  ideals  are  after  all 
meant  to  have  a  bearing,  and  from  the  actual 
make-up  of  human  nature  they  derive  their  con- 
tent. But  with  respect  to  external  nature,  at 
least,  those  ideals  are  wholly  autonomous  ;  man 
i-  not  called  upon  to  feel  any  promiscuous  piety 


towards  things  as  they  are.  Mr.  Santayana's 
own  scale  of  moral  and  aesthetic  values  is  not  such 
as  usually  goes  with  a  realwiesenschaftlich,  mechan- 
istic philosophy.  With  a  Democritic  metaphysics 
he  combines  an  Aristotelian  ethics — minus  the 
residuum  of  Platonic  otherworldliness  that  sur- 
vives even  in  Aristotle.  By  what  he  calls  "  the 
illusion  of  progress,"  Mr.  Santayana  does  not 
suffer  himself  to  be  deceived  ;  and  for  the  roman- 
tic restlessness  and  the  romantic  sentimental  ego- 
ism his  aversion  is  extreme.  His  notion  of  the 
good  is  of  an  essentially  static  and  quasi-aesthetic 
sort  : — a  life  lived  liberally  and  filled  with  inter- 
ests in  objective  ends  and  impersonal  values,  but 
lived  also  with  restraint  and  discipline,  with  a 
certain  Greek  sense  of  the  limitations  of  human 
existence,  and  without  illusions  about  oneself  or 
humanity  or  the  universe. 

To  what  the  Germans  would  call  "  moments" 
in  his  philosophy,  Mr.  Santayana's  three  poets 
correspond  ;  and  Lucretius  and  Dante,  at  least, 
represent  "positive"  as  well  as  "negative  mo- 
ments. ' '  Lucretius  is  the  poet  who  more  nearly 
than  any  other  faced  nature  as  it  is  : — not  nature 
as  a  collection  of  landscapes  or  as  an  excuse  for 
the  pathetic  fallacy,  but  nature  in  its  causes  and 
its  total  sweep — and  thus  in  its  nakedness,  its 
vastness,  and  its  alieuness  to  the  wistful  hopes 
and  sentiments  of  men.  Thus  to  see  nature  in  its 
truth  was  to  see  something  of  at  least  the  negative 
side  of  human  life  in  its  truth.  But  "Lucretius' 
notion  of  what  is  positively  worth  while  or  attain- 
able is  very  meagre. ' '  Dante,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  a  profoundly  false  conception  of  reality,  since 
his  universe  is  built  up  by  conceiving  ideal  values 
as  furnishing  both  the  general  framework  and  the 
origin  of  the  world  of  facts.  But  though  his 
philosophy  "  was  not  a  serious  description  of 
nature  or  evolution,  it  was  a  serious  judgment 
upon  them."  His  ethical  discernment,  half  Aris- 
totelian in  its  sources,  was,  it  is  true,  much  vitia- 
ted by  Platonistic  mysticism,  by  a  Hebraic  excess 
of  wrath  against  individuals,  and  by  a  desire — 
which  is  perhaps  an  idol  of  the  tribe — to  visit 
upon  moral  folly  retributions  other  than  its  own 
intrinsic  consequences.  Yet  in  the  realm  of 
moral  values  he  remains  a  great  master — "the 
master  of  those  who  know  by  experience  what  is 
worth  knowing  by  experience." 

Goethe's    Faust,    however,   seems   to  represent 


246 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


chiefly  (not  quite  exclusively)  a  ' '  negative  mo- 
ment "  in  the  critic's  philosophy.  At  the  outset, 
indeed,  some  very  handsome  and  not  unsympa- 
thetic things  are  said  of  the  poet  and  his  master- 
piece ;  but  the  sequel  compels  one  to  suspect  that 
these  eulogies  are  a  little  perfunctory.  Thus  we 
are  told  that  "Goethe  was  the  wisest  of  man- 
kind, too  wise,  perhaps,  to  be  a  philosopher  in 
the  technical  sense."  Yet  we  presently  find  an 
explicit  philosophy,  an  ' '  official  moral, ' '  attrib- 
uted to  the  Faust  ;  and  we  are  pretty  plainly 
told  that  '  wisdom '  is  precisely  what  that  philos- 
ophy most  conspicuously  lacks.  The  poet's  hero, 
whose  story  is  confessedly  a  sort  of  spiritual  auto- 
biography told  in  allegory,  is  represented  as  inca- 
pable of  learning  even  the  most  elementary  wis- 
dom from  any  amount  of  experience,  — the  wisdom 
of  the  Delphic  yvG>6i  aavTov,  the  knowledge  of  the 
natural  limitations  of  man's  lot  and  of  his  powers 
and  legitimate  desires.  A  vast  acquaintance  with 
the  raw  material  of  life  it  is  admitted  that  Goethe 
had,  and  a  frequent  episodic  sagacity  about  the 
incidents  of  it.  But  in  its  general  character  the 
career  of  Faust  is  "  a  career  of  folly  ' ' ;  and,  how- 
ever joyfully  the  angelic  hosts  may  sing  over  the 
final  Erlosung  of  the  hero,  from  folly  he  remains 
(in  Mr.  Santayana's  eyes)  unredeemed  at  the 
end.  Accordingly,  as  philosopher  and  moralist 
Goethe  is  ranked  the  lowest  of  the  three  poets. 
In  Faust  we  have  merely  the  undigested  elements 
of  the  life  of  reason  —  "the  turbid  flux  of  sense, 
the  cry  of  the  heart,  the  first  tentative  notions  of 
art  and  science. ' '  For  the  ideal  of  the  poem,  as 
construed  by  Mr.  Santayaua,  is  the  ideal  of  keep- 
ing moving  for  motion's  sake,  of  pursuing  ever 
new  experiences,  not,  perhaps,  without  regard  to 
their  relative  intensities,  but  quite  without  regard 
to  their  rational  significance.  Doubtless  Faust 
immer  strebend  sieh  bemuht ;  but  he  does  not 
strive  any  whither  in  particular,  nor  does  he,  by 
all  his  striving,  ever  gain  or  seek  to  gain  any 
radical  transformation  of  his  own  character  or 
' '  any  revolution  in  his  fortunes,  as  if  in  heaven 
he  were  going  to  be  differently  employed  than  on 
earth."  How  Faust  will  eventually  conduct  him- 
self even  in  heaven,  Mr.  Santayana  predicts,  in 
a  delightfully  witty  passage  too  long  to  quote. 
Faust's  last  act  on  earth,  at  all  events — the  cul- 
mination (as  Mr.  Santayana  might  aptly  have 


quoted  from  Eckermann)  of  what  Goethe  consid- 
ered eine  immer  hohere  und  reinere  Tdtigkeit  bis 
ans  Ende — is,  as  the  critic  notes,  a  piece  of  cow- 
ardly rascality  slightly  mitigated  by  hypocrisy. 
The  hero,  as  Eckermann  tells  us  that  the  poet  did 
not  deny,  behaved  at  the  last  very  much  after 
the  fashion  of  King  Ahab — who  has  not  com- 
monly passed  for  an  ideal  type  of  human  nature. 

Mr.  Santayana's  lecture  on  Goethe  is  thus  an 
incident  in  the  assault  upon  romanticism  now 
going  briskly  forward  in  many  quarters.  But  to 
treat  Faust  as  a  sort  of  Bible  of  sentimental  ro- 
manticism is  a  somewhat  paradoxical  thing.  The 
' '  official  moral ' '  which  the  critic  finds  in  the 
play  is  not  only  different  from,  it  is  almost  the 
contrary  of,  the  moral  conventionally  drawn.  On 
the  ground  of  his  dying  speech  Faust  is  often 
represented  as  making  an  edifying  end  in  the 
character  of  a  utilitarian  philanthropist,  finding 
his  own  happiness  chiefly  in  his  prevision  of  the 
happiness  of  humanity  to  which  his  labors  are  to 
contribute.  (Faust's  last  words  can,  in  fact,  be 
closely  paralleled  from  the  biography  of — Jeremy 
Bentham  !)  The  hero  has  come  down  to  earth, 
he  has  learned  through  experience  the  vanity  of 
unbounded  desires  and  unchastened  passions,  has 
come  to  find  his  ideal  in  controlled  will  and  in 
creative  work  within  the  normal  limits  of  human 
action.  Not  so  does  Mr.  Santayana  read  the  haec 
fabula  docet.  He  finds  that  the  old  man's  interest 
in  the  future  generations  of  industrious  burghers 
who  are  to  dwell  behind  his  leaky  dykes  is  still 
"a  masterful,  irresponsible  interest.  .  .  .  He 
calls  the  thing  he  wants  for  others  good  because 
he  now  wants  to  bestow  it  on  them,  not  because 
they  naturally  want  it  for  themselves."  "He 
would  continue,  if  life  could  last,  doing  things 
that  in  some  respects  he  would  be  obliged  to 
regret  ;  but  he  would  banish  that  regret  easily, 
in  the  pursuit  of  some  new  interest,  and  on  the 
whole,  he  would  not  regret  having  been  obliged 
to  regret  them." 

If  Faust  is  to  be  taken  (as  Mr.  Santayana 
takes  it)  as  a  self-contained  whole,  in  abstraction 
from  all  the  rest  of  Goethe  and  from  the  results 
of  all  recent  -Faits^-analysis,  this  account  of  its 
general  spirit  and  ethical  import  seems  to  me  as 
defensible  as  any  other,  and  more  defensible  than 
the  usual  school-book  version  of  its  moral.  But 


December,  1911. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


247 


of  course  the  play  ought  not  so  to  be  taken— 
though  to  say  this  is  to  say,  what  is  the  fact,  that 
the  poet's  selection  of  incident  and  allegorical 
material  even  in  the  Second  Part  fails  to  convey 
coherently  and  unequivocally  any  one,  consistent, 
philosophical  conception.  The  teaching  of  Goethe 
cannot  so  simply  be  read  off  from  the  actual 
behavior  of  his  hero  as  can  the  teaching  of  Lucre- 
tius or  Dante  from  their  directly  didactic  and  in- 
comparably better  unified  poems.  His  dominant 
idea  repeatedly  disguised  itself  in  the  form  of 
similar  but  essentially  distinct  ideas.  Yet,  of 
course,  a  dominant  idea  is  there  ;  and  through  it 
Goethe  helped  bring  about  a  species  of  Umivertung 
oiler  Werte  which  most  minds  that  have  learned 
much  from  the  past  century's  reflection  have  ac- 
cepted, but  to  which  Mr.  Santayana  seemingly 
remains  irreconcilable.  It  consists  of  an  apothe- 
osis of  the  notion  of  becoming,  of  a  conviction 
that  the  ultimate  values  of  existence  lie  not  in  the 
goal  but  in  the  process  and  in  the  inner  expe- 
riences which  accompany  it,  of  a  hatred  of  that 
finality  and  avrdpKua  which,  in  one  way  or  an- 
other, most  Greek  ethics  conceived  as  the  supreme 
good.  These  are  matters  about  which  philologists 
presumably  do  not  much  concern  themselves,  and 
they  need  not,  therefore,  be  discussed  here.  But 
it  is  pertinent  to  point  out  that  a  conscious  and 
reflective  adoption  of  these  'romantic'  ideals  is 
quite  a  different  thing  from  a  childlike  immersion 
in  the  "  turbid  flux  of  sense  " — a  fact  which  Mr. 
Santayana  hardly  sufficiently  notes.  To  have 
the  same  sort  of  mystical  feeling,  and  even 
austere  devotion,  towards  "striving"  and  the 
vereilender  Wert  of  every-day  human  experi- 
ence that  Dante  had  towards  the  timeless,  in- 
comprehensible abstraction  of  Veterno  valore 
(surely  a  far  less  rational  thing  to  feel  mystic- 
ally about) — this  is  far  from  equivalent  to  being 
merely  limited  to  ' '  life  in  its  immediacy. ' '  And 
it  was  this  transfiguration  of  the  immediate  which 
was  characteristic  of  Goethe,  not  the  sort  of  sim- 
ple-hearted restriction  to  the  immediate  which 
Mr.  Santayana  often  seems  to  ascribe  to  him. 
The  reader  of  much  of  the  chapter  on  Goethe 
might  easily  suppose  that  poet  to  be  characterized 
chiefly  by  a  sort  of  barbaric  naivete.  But,  what- 
ever else  Goethe  was,  he  was  not  naif ;  nor  is  it 
through  naivete  that  the  modern  world  has  so 


largely  come  to  a  certain  way  of  thinking  about 
the  nature  of  good  and  the  nature  of  things,  which 
the  author  of  Faust  confusedly  foreshadowed. 

A.  O.  LOVEJOY. 

Johns  Hopkins  University. 


Eruetavit.  An  Old  French  Metrical  Paraphrase 
of  Psalm  XLIV,  published  from  all  the  known 
manuscripts  and  attributed  to  Adam  de  Per- 
seigne,  by  T.  ATKINSON  JENKINS.  Dresden, 
Max  Niemeyer,  1909.  8vo.,  xlv  -f  128  pp. 
(Gesellschaft  fiir  romanische  Literatur,  Band 
20.) 

In  undertaking  a  critical  edition  of  the  old 
French  poem  Eruetavit,  Professor  Jenkins  has 
chosen  a  task  which  presents  many  difficulties. 
An  anonymous  work,  containing  a  far-fetched 
exposition  of  the  forty-fourth  Psalm  of  the  Vul- 
gate, and  possessing  little  literary  value,  it  is  in- 
teresting as  one  of  the  fesy  literary  texts  written  in 
the  eastern  dialect.  But  as  not  one  of  the  four- 
teen manuscripts  in  which  it  is  preserved  was 
written  in  the  original  dialect  of  the  author,  a 
reconstruction  of  the  text  was  the  most  important 
duty  of  an  editor,  and  in  this  reconstruction  Pro- 
fessor Jenkins  has  shown  commendable  judgment. 

The  poem  affords  only  slight  evidence  of  the 
date  and  place  of  writing.  The  allusions  to  "ma 
dame  de  Champagne"  (v.  3)  and  to  "  la  jantis 
suer  le  roi  de  France"  (v.  2079)  are  beyond 
doubt  addressed  to  that  famous  patroness  of  liter- 
ature, Marie  de  Champagne,  the  sister  of  Philip 
Augustus  (1179-1223).  That  the  author  was  an 
ecclesiastic  is.  a  certainty,  that  he  wrote  the  para- 
phrase when  Marie  was  mourning  for  the  death  of 
her  husband  (1181)  is  made  probable  by  the  fact 
that  the  psalm  on  which  it  is  based  was  used  in 
church  services  not  only  on  Christmas  morning,  as 
noted  by  the  author  (vv.  15  ff. ),  but  also  on  the 
Festival  of  Mary  Magdalene,  the  Nativity  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  the  Commemoration  of  the  Virgin, 
and  the  Blessing  of  the  Vestments  of  Widows, 
according  to  the  Westminster  Missal,1  which  was 

1  Missale  ad  usum  ecdesie  Westmonasteriensis,  ed.  J.  W. 
Legg  (Henry  Bradshaw  Society),  fasc.  r,  58;  n,  873, 
1096;  in,  1322;  n,  1208;  in,  1671. 


248 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  JVb.  8. 


in  all  probability  similar  to   that  used   in  the 
entourage  of  a  court  which  had  such  close  rela- 
tions with  that  of  England.     The  editor  has  re- 
jected (xi)  with  good  reason  the  conjecture  that 
because  St.  Pierre-le-Vif  at  Sens  is  mentioned  in 
connection  with  the  apostles  to  France,  Savinian 
and  Potentiau,  the  writer  was  connected  with  that 
monastic   foundation.      The  Ada   of  these   twin 
saints — descendants   of  the   Dioscuri — composed 
not  earlier  than  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury,2 would  have  had  its  intended  effect  anywhere 
in  the  sees  forming  part  of  the  archbishopric  for 
whose  benefit  it  was  forged   by  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century,  in  substituting  their  apostolate  to 
France  for  that  of  St.  Martin,  found  in  the  earliest 
apostolic  catalogues.     In  following  the  Ada,  one 
of  the  sources  of  the  poem  not  considered  by  the 
editor,    the  author  has  not   made   other  radical 
divergences  from  it.     St.  James  still  appears  as 
the  apostle  to  Syria  (vv.  793-4) ;  the  tradition  of 
his  apostolate  to  Spain,  due  to  a  Spanish  forger,8 
which  was  to  play  such  a  part  in  French  epic 
poetry  of  the  following  century,  is  evidently  quite 
unknown  to  him.     But  to  attribute  the  poem  to 
Adam  de  Perseigne  is  simply  a  conjecture.     There 
is  no  internal  evidence  in  its  support,  and  if  one 
considers  the  other  testimony  adduced  it  should  be 
noted  that  the  connection  of  Richard  Cceur-de- 
Lion,  the  half-brother  of  Marie  (xiv,  xvi),  could 
have   only  been  official,    when  Adam  is  named 
"  confessor  noster  "  in  two  charters  granted  to  the 
abbey  of  Perseigne  in  1198  by  the  king,4  as  the 
latter  is  said  by  the  Coggeshall  Chronicle 8  not  to 
have  taken  communion  for  seven  years  before  his 
death  in  1199. 

In  connection  with  the  plea  of  the  author  for  a 
more  humane  treatment  of  the  Jews  (x),  it  is  to 
be  noted  that  the  legend  of  Isaiah's  martyrdom 
by  sawing,  which  was  not  so  well  known  in  the 
Middle  Ages  as  is  implied  by  Professor  Jenkins 
(106),  had  a  rabbinical  source.  The  first  part 
of  the  legend  has  a  close  verbal  similarity  to  the 

2L.  Duchesne,  Bulletin  critique,  xm,  121  ff. 

3  Duchesue,  Annales  du  Midi,  xn,  145  ff. 

*  Carlulaire  de  I'abbaye  Oistercienne  de  Perseigne,  43,  81 ; 
cf.  Calendar  of  Documents  Preserved  in  France,  etc. ,  ed.  J. 
H.  Round,  i,  363,  n.  2. 

5  Ed.  Stevenson,  96  ;  cf.  Ramsay,  The  Angevin  Empire, 
366,  n.  1. 


version  in  the  Historia  scholastica*  of  Petrus 
Comestor  (fl!79),  which  might  well  have  been 
known  to  the  French  author,  since  as  early  as 
1195  Hugh  Pudsey,  Bishop  of  Durham,  left  to  the 
church  of  Durham  an  "  Abbreviatio  scholasticae 
Historiae."  7  But  the  Historia  does  not  contain 
any  suggestion  of  the  episode  told  in  the  verses  : 

En  cele  angoisse  ou  il  estoit 

Quant  li  soierre  s'arestoit, 

Prist  le  prophete  line  granz  sois  ; 

Mais  por  ce  que  li  cuiverz  rois 

Ne  soffri  qu'an  li  donast  boivre, 

Deu  comrnanca  a  ramantoivre. 

Par  cez  paroles  le  proia 

Et  Damede"s  li  anvoia 

TJn  fil  d'iaue  devers  le  ciel, 

Soef  et  douce  come  miel. 

Si  tost  comrae  il  1'ot  avalee 

Si  en  fu  1'ame  a  Deu  alee  (2111-2122); 

which  evidently  had  as  its  source  the  anecdote 
given  as  a  supplement  to  Comestor' s  account  by 
Higdeii  in  his  Polychronicon  : 

Trad unt  Hebraei  quod  dum  Isayas  extra  Jerusa- 
lem juxta  foutem  Siloae  secaretur,  petivit  aquam 
sibi  dari,  qua  non  concessa,  Deus  de  coelo  misit 
aquam  in  os  ejus,  et  sic  expiravit.8 

The  ultimate  authority  for  this  anecdote  was  a 
Latin  compilation,  resembling  in  many  respects 
the  Historia,  of  which  it  was  one  of  the  main 
sources  as  it  was  of  the  biblical  poem  of  Mace  de 
la  Charite9  and  of  other  works.10  This  compila- 
tion was  probably  written  by  a  Christian  in  Cham- 
pagne, where  Troyes  was  the  centre  of  Jewish 
rabbinical  studies  in  the  twelfth  century,11  and 
where,  since  the  beginning  of  the  same  century, 
there  had  been  friendly  intercourse  between  Jew- 

6  Migne,  Patrol,  lat.,  cxcvm,  1414. 

''Publications  of  the  Surtees  Society,  II,  Wills  and  In- 
ventories, 4.  The  earliest  copy  in  a  French  collection  is 
that  entered  in  the  catalogue  of  Corbie,  made  c.  1200 
(Delisle,  Bibl.  de  I'Ecole  des  Charles,  S.  5,  r,  506  ;  on  date 
see  395). 

8  Ed.  Lumby,  in,  76.    The  editor  (xi)  does  not  suggest 
its  source. 

9  Cf.  G.  Paris,  Hist.  litt.  de  la  France,  xxvm,  200,  214. 

10 1  have  discussed  at  length  in  a  study  of  another  rab- 
binical story,  found  in  Occidental  literature,  the  contents, 
sources,  and  use  made  of  this  hypothetical  work.  It  will 
appear  in  an  early  number  of  the  Zeit.  f.  rom.  Philologit. 

uRenan  and  Neubauer,  Hist,  litt.,  xxvn,  434-444, 
475 ff.,  482. 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


249 


ish  savants  and  the  Christian  clergy.11  And  it  is 
better  to  attribute  to  this  source  the  author's 
inspiration  for  making  Isaiah  the  author  of  the 
Gloria  Patri,  than  to  the  Ascensio  Ivaiae,  which 
was  unknown  to  the  Occident  for  so  many  cen- 
turies. 

In  the  study  of  the  language  (xxxvff. )  there 
are  points  which  call  for  comment.     It  was  a  wise 
plan  to  follow  the  arrangement  made  by  Foerster 
in  the  Introduction  to  the  Cligto,  but  in  speaking 
of  the  distinction  between  e  and  $  (6),  so  evident 
in  the  rhyme,  it  would  have  been  better,  instead 
of  stating  that  it  was  contrary  to  Chretien's  usage, 
to  note  that  the  Enictavit  is  another  text  to  be 
added  to  those  noted  by  Foerster  1S  as  making  this 
distinction.    In  horn,  hon,  947,  1651,  the  word  is 
a  substantive,  and  om,  on  represents  o,  while  an, 
en   represents   e,  the  indefinite  on  and  the  two 
sounds  should  not  be  treated  under  the  same  head- 
ing (4).     The  development  of  e  +  J  into  oi  as 
well  as  into  i  is  not  so  remarkable  as  the  editor 
states  (8,  16a),  but  is  a  common  double  develop- 
ment in  the  south-eastern  French  dialects.     For 
the  same  reason,  the  statement  (21):    "As  e  -f  i 
>  i   it  is  reasonable   to  infer   that    tonic  proie, 
proient  presuppose  pretonic  proier  (not  preier  nor 
priery  is  questionable.    It  is  better  to  accept  the 
evidence  of  different  manuscripts  which  give  the 
double  development  in  which  the  pretouic  forms 
whose  endings  are   tonic  have   been   formed  on 
analogy  with  the  stem-accented  forms. 

More  noteworthy  than  ou  for  o  in  A  (11)  is 
the  development  of  an  i  before  a  palatal  in  touiche 
and  boniche,  a  peculiarity  which  also  appears  in 
boiche  and  toiche  of  E.  Fuer  :  cuer  :  defuer  by 
the  side  of  fors  (17)  is  too  general  a  phenomenon 
to  be  noted  as  a  dialectic  peculiarity.  The  cause 
of  the  rhyme  cuide  :  homecide  (18)  might  be  men- 
tioned :  the  shifting  of  the  accent  to  the  second 
part  of  the  diphthong.  The  rhymes  fil  -.peril  :fil : 
estil  are  noticeable,  as  elsewhere  I'  rhymes  only 
with  itself. 

Upon  the  difference  between  the  cithara  and 
the  psalterium  and  their  symbolism  in  the  church 
fathers,  the  editor  (p.  97)  has  failed  to  use  an 

11  D.  Kaufmann,  Jvbtlschrift  zum  90.  Geburtstag  des  Dr. 
L.  Zunz,  147ff. ;  Rev.  des  etudes  juives,  xviir,  131-3. 

13  Zeit.  /.  ran.  Philologie,  xxviii,  508 ;  and  now  xxxv, 
477,  n.  3. 


informing  note  in   van   Hamel's  edition  of  Les 
Lamentations   de  Matheolus.11     For  further  con- 
firmation of  Professor  Jenkins's  conjecture  (99  ; 
Romania,  xxxix,  83-6)  that  the  author's  use  of 
melite  (Malta)  with  the  sense  "  place  of  safety," 
"salvation  from  sin,"  was  a  reminiscence  of  the 
second  book   of  the  De  actibm  apostolorum  of 
Arator,  one  has  only  to  remember  that  this  work 
was  held  up  as  a  model  of  Christian  composition, 
praised  or  pilfered  from  by  a  succession  of  writers, 
beginning  with  Fortunatus  and  ending  with  Roger 
Bacon."    Copies  of  it  were  very  common  in  medie- 
val libraries,"  where  it  was  sometimes  found  sep- 
arate,17 sometimes  together  with  other  Christian 
poets,  Prudentius,  Sedulius,  Prosper  and  Juven- 
cus  ; 18  and  more  rarely  with  primary  books  of  in- 
struction such  as  Cato,  Avianus  and  Theodulus." 
Its  appearance  in  such  collections  as  at  least  the 
latter  is  explained  by  the  oft-repeated  commenda- 
tion of  its  use  as  a  textbook,  which  was  first  given 
it  in  the  twelfth  century,  the  date  also  of  glosses 
on  it,  probably  written  in  France,  where  it  was 
most  generally  known.20     If  several  copies  of  the 
work  are  found  in  some  monastic  libraries,"  it  was 
because  they  were  doubtless  loaned  as  copies  of 
other  elementary  school  books  to  the  students  of 
the  monastic  school."    Manitius's  observation  that 

14  Vol.  n,  154-5,  263. 

15  M.  Manitius,   Geschichte  der  lateinischen  Lileratur  des 
MiUelaUers,  i,  166-7,  190,  349,  424,  509,  580,  602,  618 ; 
cf.  Ebert,  Lit.  d.  Mittelallers,  u,  70.  n.,  132;  in,   115, 
498,  n. 

16  Manitius,  167. 

17  G.  Becker,  Catalogi  bibliothecarum  antiqui,  3,  41,  52, 
131,  138,  141,  142,  152,  174,  175,  186,  192,  197,  208. 
227,  229,  242,  252,  275. 

18  Becker,  op.  cit.,  13,  28,  76,  81,  131,  134,  152,  191, 
203,  219;  M.-R.  James,  The  Ancient  Libraries  of  Canter- 
bury and  Dover,  42,  367,  487. 

"Becker,  62,  70,  249;  Hamilton,  Modern  Philology, 
vn,  178. 

20  Manitius,  167.  That  the  third  book  of  the  Labyrinthus 
in  which  .the  work  of  Arator  is  commended  as  a  school- 
book  (59-60)  was  not  due  to  the  authorship  of  Evrard  de 
Be"thune  (Manitius,  /.  e. ;  Jenkins,  Rum.,  xxxix,  84,  n. ) 
has  been  pointed  out  a  number  of  times  (Hamilton,  op. 
cit.,  176). 

"  Becker,  op.  cit.,  128  ;  James,  op.  cit.,  9,  364. 

"Ingulphus,  Historia  Croylandensi*  in  Gale,  Rtrum 
Anglicarum  Scriptorum  Vetei-um,  Tom.  1,  104-5:  "Pro 
minoribus  autem  libris,  scilicet  Psalteriis,  Donatis,  Cato- 
nibus,  et  similibus  Poeticis,  ac  quaternis  de  Cantu  ad 
pueros  et  cognatos  Monachorum  accomodandis  etinni 


250 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


outside  of  the  episcopal  libraries,  copies  were 
generally  to  be  found  in  Benedictine  cloisters, 
almost  never  in  the  foundation  of  the  Cistercian 
and  other  orders,  is  an  indication  of  the  status  of 
the  author,  useless  as  a  criterion  in  the  case  of 
Adain  de  Perseigne,  who  was  a  Benedictine  before 
becoming  a  Cistercian.  Longinus  is  not  men- 
tioned in  John,  xix,  34  (101),  and  since  the 
editor  has  credited  his  author  with  an  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Evangelium  Nicodemi  (xxii-xxiii, 
98),  why  has  he  not  found  the  source  of  the  two 
verses  (1249-1250): 

Quant  il  atocha  au  coste" 
Dont  Longis  ot  le  fer  ost£ 

in  the  verses  of  the  apocryphal  work,  "Accipiens 
autem  Longinus  miles  lanceam  aperuit  latus 
eius, ' '  "  although  the  name  ' '  Longis  ' '  and  the 
legend  in  regard  to  it  were  very  common  in 
medieval  French  literature. 


GEORGE  L.   HAMILTON. 


Cornell  University. 


JOSEPH  WIEHR,  Hebbel  und  Ibsen  in  ihren 
Anschauungen  verglichen.  Thesis  Presented 
to  the  Faculty  of  the  Graduate  School  of  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania.  Stuttgart,  1908, 
183  pp.,  8°. 

This  thesis  seeks  to  compare  the  ethical,  socio- 
logical, and  psychological  views  of  Ibsen  and 
Hebbel  as  the  author  gathers  them  from  the 
dramas  of  both  poets  and  from  the  diaries  and 
letters  of  Hebbel.  The  rich  Ibsen  "Nachlasz" 

Cantori  et  Custodi  alraarioruru  cuicumque  prohibemus 
districtius  sub  inobedientiae  poena  ne  saltern  sine  licentia 
Prioris  ultra  unum  diem  alicui  accommodentur  aut  tra- 
dantur."  This  passage  only  appears  in  this  edition  of  a 
chronicle,  of  which  the  authenticity  is  more  than  dubious. 
It  is  not  found  in  the  only  extant  manuscript,  which  was 
the  source  of  Savile's  and  Birch's  editions  (see  Rer. 
Angl.  Scriplores  post  JBedam,  MDXCVI,  fol.  519  vers. ),  as 
has  been  pointed  out  to  me  by  my  friend  Professor  E.  K. 
Band.  The  passage  has  not  been  traced  to  its  source,  nor 
has  an  analogous  monastic  practise  been  noted  (J.  W. 
Clark,  Care  of  Books,  64-75),  but  it  has  an  independent 
value  as  denoting  the  contemporary  practise  of  the  fif- 
teenth century,  when  the  forgery  was  written. 
28  Tischendorf,  Evangeb'a  apocrypha,  2d.  ed.,  p.  362. 


which  has  modified  our  views  of  the  poet  consid- 
erably had  not  at  the  time  appeared.  Under  the 
headings  of  Weltanschauung  ;  Stellung  zur  Reli- 
gion ;  Sittlichkeit  ;  Staat,  Gesellschaft,  Indivi- 
duum  ;  Die  Frau  und  die  Ehe,  he  seeks  to  formu- 
late the  affinities  and  divergences  of  these  two 
great  thinkers  and  writers  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. Verbosity  and  a  strong  and  annoying  ten- 
dency to  irrelevance  frequently  cloud  the  issue. 
The  conclusion,  as  stated  in  general  terms  is  : 
' '  In  den  Anschauungen  Hebbels  und  Ibsens 
finden  wir  eine  weitgehende  Uebereinstimmung, 
doch  wo  dieselbe  fehlt,  treffen  wir  in  der  Regel 
auf  einen  absoluten  Gegensatz  "  (p.  174).  W. 
shows  that  basically  the  view  of  life  of  the  two 
dramatists  is  identical  :  a  conception  of  a  dual- 
istic  world,  in  which  a  continual  struggle  is  being 
waged  between  the  "All"  and  the  individual 
(pp.  25  ff. ).  Both  looked  upon  the  present  state 
of  society  pessimistically,  but  hoped  for  a  better- 
ment of  conditions  in  the  future.  They  differed 
radically,  however,  in  the  method  of  procedure. 
This  in  Ibsen's  case  was  a  revolutionary  attack 
on  social  conditions,  which  he  depicted  as  unmiti- 
gatedly  wrong  and  in  need  of  immediate  change. 
Hebbel,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  vantage 
ground  of  his  "  zauberkraftige  Formel "  (p.  8), 
saw  the  cause  and  justification  of  both  the  conven- 
tion and  the  attack.  Confusing  in  this  connection 
is  W.'s  statement  (p.  20)  "  dasz  er  (Hebbel) 
soziale  Umstande  nicht  als  berechtigte  Gegen- 
macht  ansieht,"  a  cryptic  remark  not  substan- 
tiated by  any  examples.  Moreover,  W.  goes  too 
far  when  he  says  :  ' '  Ibsen  war  selbst  zu  sehr 
Partei  und  stellte  sich,  wenigstens  in  seinen  so- 
zialen  Dramen,  mit  Entschiedenheit  auf  die  Seite 
der  Gegner  des  Bestehenden  "  (p.  65).  Ibsen 
criticises  not  only  the  social  conventions  which 
are  the  object  of  attack  but  also  the  critics  who 
attack  them.  And  if  we  may  well  say  with  W. 
that  Hebbel  "es  zuwege  brachte,  alien  Parteien 
recht  zu  geben  "  (p.  65),  we  may  say  of  Ibsen 
that  he  shows  all  sides  to  be  in  the  wrong.  W.'s 
failure  to  perceive  this  leads  him  into  unnecessary 
and  wearisome  disquisitions  on  the  fallacies  of 
Nora,  Helene  Alving,  etc.,  whom  he  seems  to 
regard  as  Ibsen's  ideals  of  what  human  beings 
should  be.  A  study  of  Anzengruber's  Pfarrer 
•von  Kirchfeld  might  have  shown  W.  the  differ- 


December,  1911. J 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


251 


ence  between  an  author  who  really  champions 
one  side  of  a  problem  and  a  critic  of  the  whole  of 
life  like  Ibsen.  W.  might  then  not  have  stig- 
matized the  source  of  Puppenheim,  as  given  by 
Brandes,  as  a  "  kummerliche  Alltagsgeschichte  " 
(p.  159).  For  the  artist  who  chose  the  attic-studio 
of  Helmer  Ekdal  for  loving  description,  such  a 
term  hardly  exists. 

W.  shows  that,  as  time  went  on,  Ibsen  became 
more  revolutionary  in  his  attacks  on  society,  Heb- 
bel  growing  less  aggressive.  For  this  amelioration 
of  feeling  on  the  part  of  Hebbel,  W.  kindly  sup- 
plies the  personal  motive  that  as  society  began 
to  smile  upon  the  poet,  he  became  its  advocate 
(pp.  90  f. ).  In  discussing  the  two  poets'  attitude 
on  the  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  W. 
makes  a  good  distinction.  Hebbel  he  shows  to  be  a 
determinist  (though  with  occasional  contradic- 
tions), his  characters  all  obeying  an  "  absolute 
necessity,"  while  Ibsen's  people  are  "unfrei," 
being  under  the  pressure  of  conventions,  circum- 
stances, the  will  of  others  (pp.  48  ff. ).  As  to 
their  position  towards  women,  W.  concludes  that 
Hebbel  never  and  Ibsen  only  at  one  period  of  his 
life  favored  the  "emancipation"  of  woman,  but 
that  both  agreed  in  demanding  for  her  recognition 
as  an  individual  (p.  1461).  This  statement  is  only 
partially  satisfactory.  As  Woerner  has  shown, 
Ibsen  was  the  culmination  and  Hebbel,  with  Kleist, 
the  transition  of  a  movement  which  began  with  the 
Romanticists  and  which  revolutionized  the  con- 
ventional attitude  towards  the  "  sex-  war, "  the 
evolution  of  the  "  grande  amoureuse"  of  the 
past  into  the  modern  comrade  of  man  (Woerner, 
II,  p.  257).  Moreover,  it  is  necessary  here  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  theoretical  words  of  a  writer 
and  his  literary  creations.  Kleist  presented  in 
his  Nathalie  a  person  far  superior  to  his  concep- 
tion of  women  as  we  see  it  in  his  letters.  Here, 
eighteenth  century  thinking  and  nineteenth  cen- 
tury feeling  were  at  war.  The  same  is  sometimes 
true  of  Hebbel.  He  claims  far  more  for  Mariamue 
and  Rhodope  as  regards  independence  of  action 
and  demands  for  recognition,  than  many  of  his 
utterances  in  the  diaries  and  letters  would  suggest. 

Of  a  number  of  errors  and  hasty  conclusions,  a 
few  of  the  more  disturbing  are  :  the  confusion  of 
Gyges  and  Kandaules  in  the  discussion  of  Heb- 
bel's  Gyges  und  sein  Ring  (p.  65  and  again  p.  88). 


To  claim  that  Ibsen  invented  the  "  returning 
traveller  or  newly  arrived  stranger  for  the  pur- 
pose of  exposition  "  (p.  17)  sounds  a  bit  innocent. 
We  need  but  think  of  Hamlet  where  Horatio's 
return  serves  this  purpose.  To  say  that  Ibsen's 
drama  has  had  but  slight  influence  on  the 
literary  productivity  of  England  (p.  16)  is  to  wipe 
out  of  existence  almost  all  of  the  modern  English 
drama  :  Bernard  Shaw  as  well  as  Jones  and 
Pinero.  The  firstnaraed  freely  acknowledged  his 
indebtedness  ;  in  fact,  whole  plays  like  Man  and 
Superman  are  Ibsen  anglicized,  while  the  others 
may  be  called  Ibsen  lemonaded. 

The  points  which  Wichr  makes  are  largely 
obscured  and  made  inaccessible  to  the  reader  by 
the  undue  space  given  to  disquisitions  on  general 
subjects  for  the  purpose  of  making  us  acquainted 
with  W.'s  own  views  on  questions  like  Socialism 
and  Democracy  followed  by  an  attack  on  "  haltlose 
Phantasten"  like  Tolstoi,  who  expect  the  salva- 
tion of  mankind  from  the  masses  (pp.  107  f.,  129) ; 
on  the  emancipation  of  women  and  woman's  place 
in  creation  (p.  129) ;  on  marriage  (pp.  159  f. ) ;  on 
the  advantages  of  city  life  (p.  165),  etc.,  etc.  All 
this  garrulity,  however  valuable,  is  less  interesting 
to  the  reader  than  the  views  of  Hebbel  and  Ibsen 
on  these  subjects.  Regrettable  also  is  the  flip- 
pantly journalistic  tone  together  with  a  note  of 
personal  virulence  which  mars  what  should  be 
a  calmly  scientific  exposition  (pp.  127,  129,  136, 
137,  154,  155,  170,  173,  etc.).  After  pages  de- 
voted to  a  very  personal  and  subjective  arraign- 
ment of  Hebbel  in  his  action  towards  Elise  Lens- 
ing  (pp.  100-102,  133-137),  W.  amusingly  says  : 
"Ich  deuke  nicht  daran,  iiber  Hebbels  Hand- 
lungsweise  zu  Gericht  ziehen  zu  wollen  "  (p.  135). 
W.  is  most'  liberal  in  furnishing  mean  and  petty 
motives  not  only  to  Hebbel  and  Ibsen  but  to  all 
who  may  disagree  with  him  (pp.  90,  116f.,  131, 
168). 

The  conclusion  which  W.  reached  and  which 
might  have  been  reached  in  50  instead  of  183 
pages,  is  that  Hebbel  and  Ibsen  both  attacked 
society  on  behalf  of  the  individual,  but  made  that 
attack  from  opposite  points  of  departure  :  Ibsen 
as  revolutionist,  Hebbel  as  evolutionist.  The  point 
that  should  have  been  more  emphasized  is  that 
their  great  service  to  mankind  aud  to  art  lies  in 
the  fact  that  both  held  up  for  searching  criticism 


252 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTE 8. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


old  aud  revered  institutions,  and  that  both  laid 
the  center  of  gravity  on  the  inner  life  and  not  on 
outer  conventions.  Ibsen,  as  Woerner  has  shown, 
was  the  volunteer  asked  for  in  Hebbel's  Gyges, 
who  should  dare  to  break  ' '  den  Schlaf  der  Welt ' ' 
and  wrest  away  worthless  but  cherished  playthings. 

HENRIETTA  BECKER  VON  KLENZE. 
Providence,  B.  1. 


Das  Passe  Defini  und  Imparfait  im  Altfranzosi- 
schen,  von  P.  SCHAECHTELIN.  Halle  :  Nie- 
meyer,  1911.  83  pp.  Beiheft  30  zur  ZRPh. 

The  author  of  the  work  under  discussion  states 
that  he  has  attempted  to  determine  the  exact  syn- 
tactical meaning  of  the  imperfect  and  past  definite 
in  Old  and  Modern  French,-  hoping  to  discover 
and  help  to  measure  any  variation  of  usage  between 
the  two  periods  in  respect  to  these  tenses.  Dis- 
satisfied with  preceding  works  upon  the  subject, 
he  has  chosen  the  thirteenth  century  as  a  field  of 
study,  and  from  its  literature  has  selected  the 
three  historians  Villehardouin,  Joinville,  and 
Henri  de  Valenciennes.  All  of  these  he  has 
used  in  the  edition  of  N.  de  Wailly,  whose  trans- 
lations into  Modern  French  have  served  him  as 
a  basis  of  comparison  between  the  usage  in  the 
two  periods.  As  a  result  of  this  investigation 
Schaechtelin  has  come  to  conclusions  which  may 
here  be  presented  in  a  slightly  different  order  to 
meet  the  demands  of  condensed  exposition. 

The  past  definite  is  essentially  a  narrative 
tense,  and  as  such  the  idea  of  succession  (Reihen- 
begriff)  is  inseparable  from  it.  Therefore,  unless 
used  with  other  past  definites,  the  verbal  form 
(which  for  convenience  of  distinction  will  be 
termed  the  preterite  in  English)  is  not  a  past 
definite,  but  rather  an  ' '  isolated  perfect ' '  which 
is  not  narrative,  but  on  the  contrary  explanatory, 
like  the  imperfect,  from  which,  however,  it  differs 
in  not  being  contemporaneous.  Even  when  a 
preterite  occurs  with  other  preterite  forms,  we 
have  an  isolated  perfect  and  not  a  past  definite 
to  deal  with  unless  the  narrative  advances.  More- 
over, just  as  the  past  definite  is  at  times  found  in 
an  inchoative  sense,  besides  its  ordinary  meaning, 
so  the  isolated  perfect  shows  both  usages,  as  seen 


in   the   following   passage  taken   from   Nisard's 
Caesar,  vi,  30  : 

La  fortune  peut  beaucoup  en  toute  chose,  et  sur- 
tout  a  la  guerre.  Car  si  ce  fut  un  grand 
hasard  de  surprendre  Ambiorix  ...  ce  f  u  t 
(isolated  perfect  inchoative)  aussi  pour  lui  un 
grand  bonheur  qu'  .  .  .  il  put  echapper  &  la 
mort. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  isolated  perfect  is  sub- 
jective, explanatory  ;  it  is  especially  common  in 
the  case  of  the  auxiliaries,  and  from  it  arose  the 
extended  use  of  the  past  indefinite,  which  was 
also  originally  explanatory. 

The  second  point  that  Schaechtelin  investigates 
is  the  nature  of  inchoative  value  ;  his  results  are 
derived  especially  from  a  study  of  the  auxiliaries. 
The  argument  is  based  upon  the  Indo-European 
etymology  of  Latin  fid,  which  means  originally 
' '  to  grow. ' '  This  root  does  not  occur  in  all  of 
the  tenses,  hence  the  inchoative  value  did  not 
spread  to  the  other,  non-perfect  forms  of  the 
verb  ;  indeed,  so  powerful  was  the  auxiliary  fut 
in  French  that  it  kept  avoir  from  having  an  in- 
choative meaning  throughout,  although  the  latter 
is  etymologically  fitted  for  such  a  value  by  its 
connection  with  the  Greek  root  ' '  to  seize. ' '  JEtre 
and  avoir,  therefore,  kept  the  inchoative  meaning 
in  the  perfect  ;  in  Old  French,  and  even  at  the 
present  day,  they  are  found  in  the  preterite  more 
often  than  other  verbs  ;  all  other  cases  of  inchoa- 
tive meaning  must  be  traced  to  analogy  with  fut, 
sometimes  aided  by  etymological  elements  lying 
dormant  in  the  verb  itself  (p.  51).  Not  all  verbs 
are  capable  of  receiving  this  double  meaning,  nor 
does  it  exist  throughout  the  verb  ;  thus  statum 
O  ete)  is  never  inchoative,  except  in  the  case  of 
f  ai  ete  -j-  participle,  where  the  inchoative  mean- 
ing is  derived  from  its  use  to  replace  jefus  -j- 
participle.  It  is  essential  to  distinguish  the  in- 
choative value  of  flit  from  its  purely  narrative, 
past  definite  use,  which,  independent  of  any 
verbal  meaning,  gives  succession. 

The  pluperfect  and  past  definite  correspond 
exactly  to  the  simple  tenses  of  the  auxiliaries. 
The  extended  use  of  the  past  anterior  as  a  nar- 
rative tense  in  Old  French  gave  rise,  upon  its 
decline,  to  the  development  of  a  new  form. 
J'  eus  fait  might  be  either  inchoative  or  not.  How- 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


253 


ever,  fern  could  be  replaced  by  f  ai  eu  only  in 
the  inchoative  sense,  since  the  past  indefinite  of 
avoir  is  popularly  restricted  to  the  inchoative 
meaning.  In  other  cases  the  past  anterior  was 
replaced  by  the  pluperfect  as  f  ens  has  been  re- 
placed by/  avals.  J'  ai  eufaii  can  occur  only 
for  inchoative  meaning,  and  this  form  is  therefore 
not  rightly  classed  by  Diez  as  a  double  compound 
tense  parallel  to  j' avals  eu  fait,  etc. 

As  a  result  of  his  comparison,  the  author  de- 
cides that  the  meaning  of  the  tenses  was  the  same 
in  Old  French  as  now.  Among  the  causes  that 
led  to  a  much  more  frequent  use  of  the  past  defi- 
nite in  Old  French  he  mentions  (1)  the  historical 
character  of  the  texts  ;  (2)  the  subordination  of 
explanation  to  the  giving  of  succession  ;  (3)  the 
accuracy  and  vividness  of  style;  (4)  adherence 
to  the  root  meaning  of  words  and  to  the  nature  of 
the  past  definite. 

On  ths  whole,  Schaechtelin  finds  greater  sub- 
jective play  in  the  older  period,  a  freedom  which 
was  lost  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  when  classical  influence  determined 
fixedly  the  form  of  expression. 

In  the  presentation  of  his  material  the  author 
satisfactorily  shows  the  exact  shade  of  meaning 
which  he  attaches  to  the  given  example,  and 
insists  upon  the  importance  of  the  point  of  view. 
He  rightly  refuses  to  accept  a  double  meaning  in 
the  verb  as  an  explanation  of  inchoative  value 
and  correctly  states  that  this  latter  phenomenon 
can  not  be  the  basis  for  an  essential  differentiation 
between  the  imperfect  and  past  definite,  and  that 
furthermore  there  is  nothing  in  the  form  of  the  past 
definite  or  past  indefinite  to  give  inchoative  value, 
Schaechtelin 's  theories,  however,  lead  to  an 
involved  system,  and  it  has  been  thought  best  in 
this  discussion  to  omit  from  consideration  a  fifth 
class  of  preterites— a  preterite  inchoative,  used 
with  narrative  past  definites,  but  itself  giving 
contemporaneous,  explanatory  material  ;  nor  will 
further  mention  be  made  of  the  "isolated  past 
anterior. ' ' 

Although  it  is  of  prime  importance  to  attach 
definite  meanings  to  words,  it  is  possible  to  be  too 
subtle  in  this  respect.  The  analysis  of  definitions 
on  pp,  6  and  9  is  not  always  free  from  this  objec- 
tion. That  this  dissatisfaction  with  terms  arises 
at  times  from  a  misunderstanding  of  the  original 


is  plain  in  the  translation,  on  pp.  53-54,  of  "  a 
tense  attribute"  by  "eiue  attributive  Zeit,"  an 
expression  unintelligible  in  this  connection.  Nor 
is  Schaechtelin  warranted  in  correcting  Landgraf 
(p.  57).  It  is  to  be  regretted,  further,  that  he 
holds  old  and  erroneous  theories  of  tense,  accord- 
ing to  which  the  speaker  stations  himself  in  the 
past  when  using  the  historical  present,  and  in  the 
present  for  the  imperfect.1  The  chief  criticisms 
of  this  monograph,  however,  must  bear  upon  the 
fundamental  points  treated. 

That  an  isolated  perfect  of  the  kind  described 
exists  is  unquestioned  ;  also  that  the  emphasis  in 
it  is  upon  the  completion  of  the  activity.  This 
well-known  preterite  derives  its  value  directly 
from  the  Latin  perfect,  which  was  a  composite 
form,  including  s-perfects,  v-perfects,  redupli- 
cated perfects,  and  the  participial  -tus  forms  for 
passives  and  deponents.  The  French  past  defi- 
nite, which  resulted  from  the  Latin  perfect,  might 
naturally  be  expected  to  show  the  values  of  the 
original  tense.  Schaechtelin 's  rejection  of  the 
isolated  perfect  from  the  realm  of  the  past  defi- 
nite, as  not  forming  any  part  of  it,  can  not  be 
justified  historically,  and  can  be  accounted  for 
only  by  the  arbitrary  definition  which  he  has 
adopted,  according  to  which  succession  is  a  sine 
qua  non  of  the  past  definite. 

The  contention,  however,  that  the  past  definite 
must  give  a  narrative  and  can  not  stand  alone,  is 
no  more  fallacious  than  is  Schaechtelin' s  concep- 
tion of  the  imperfect.  The  latter  teuse  is  for  him 
a  relative  one,  not  used  alone,  but  dependent 
upon  some  past  definite,  often  understood,  and 
giving  explanatory  material  or  information  con- 
sidered as  such.  He  asserts  that  repetition  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  character  of  the  imperfect 
and  has  never  influenced  it.  As  a  proof  of  this 
is  given  the  fact  that  a  repeated  act  may  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  past  definite  if  it  marks  a  step 
forward  (p.  26). 

Schaechtelin  thus  seems  to  overlook-altogether 
the  element  of  stress  as  a  determining  factor. 
Naturally  his  theories  do  not  allow  him  to  con- 
ceive of  the  pictorial  imperfect,'  which  he  tries  to 

1  Cf.  Cledat,  Annuaire  de  la  Faculte  des  Lettres  de  Lyon, 
I,  fasc.  ir,  p.  62. 

1  Cf.  Fornaciari,  K. ,  L' Imperfetto  Slorico.  Studj  Eomanzi, 
fasc.  2,  pp.  27-39.  Armstrong,  Modern  Philology,  vi,  p.  47. 


254 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


explain  by  reference  to  some  other  verb  uncon- 
nected in  reality  with  the  tense  used  (cf.  middle 
of  p.  13). 

It  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  while  the  imper- 
fect stresses  duration,  repetition,  the  past  definite 
is,  thanks  to  its  Latin  source,  the  past  tense  par 
excellence.  Though  it  may  lend  itself  to  the 
stressing  of  such  verbal  phases  as  completion,  or 
inception,  it  is  often  used  to  give  simple  past 
action  without  stress.3  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
Schaechtelin's  division  of  all  preterites  into  two 
classes  is  unsatisfactory.  The  residual  perfect  is 
the  real  explanation  in  many  of  the  cases  which 
Schaechtelin  found  difficult.  It  lies  at  the  basis 
of  the  formal  expressions  mentioned  on  p.  45,  the 
later  disappearance  of  which  was  due  to  the  more 
careful  stressing  of  various  elements.  Explained 
by  the  residual  perfect,  rebellious  cases  which 
Schaechtelin  strove  to  fit  into  the  theory  already 
outlined  or  which  he  condemned  in  the  translation 
as  incorrect,  are  readily  understood.  The  imper- 
fects at  the  bottom  of  p.  27  and  top  of  p.  28  are  a 
good  illustration  of  stress  on  repetition  ;  they  are 
independent  of  vit.  Tint,  p.  37,  gives  merely  an 
unstressed  past  fact  ;  distinguaient,  p.  41,  might 
be  translated  :  they  could  distinguish  one  another ; 
the  past  definite  would  give  simply  the  past  occur- 
rence of  the  action.  The  numerous  examples  of 
ot  and  fu,  mentioned  on  p.  76,  are  due  to  lack  of 
stress,  as  is  shown  by  Schaechtelin's  observation 
that  in  dependent  clauses,  the  imperfect  is  usual ; 
i.  e. ,  the  imperi'ect  was  used  where  the  subordinate 
relation  made  durative  elements  prominent.  Other 
notable  examples  are  :  savait  and  sut,  p.  25 ;  dis- 
trent,  p.  27 ;  fu  and  aprocha,  p.  28  ;  vaut,  p.  40 ; 
durent,  p.  47  ;  ot,  p.  72 ;  eurent,  p.  73 ;  fu,  p.  78. 

It  is  necessary,  before  proceeding  further  in  the 
consideration  of  Schaechtelin's  views  on  inchoative 
value,  to  reject  from  his  lists  all  such  examples  as 
fut  ouvert  (p.  57);  fut  entreprise  (p.  73);  funez, 
fu  morz  (pp.  81-82).  That  the  passive  and  de- 
ponent forms  have  nothing  to  do  with  inchoative 
meaning,  but  arose  from  entirely  independent 
causes,  is  now  completely  assured.* 

3  Cf.  Vandaele,  H.,  Syntaxe  des  temps  et  des  modes  en 
fran$ais.  Besanyon,  1906,  p.  2.  Also  Armstrong,  o.  c., 
pp.  49-50. 

*This  proof  is  furnished  by  the  work  of  Herzog,  E., 
Das  to-Partizip  im  Altromanischen,  in  Prinzipienfragen  der 


Schaechtelin  asserts  positively  that  the  past  in- 
definite of  etre  can  never  be  inchoative  (p.  53). 
This  statement,  although  seemingly  made  neces- 
sary by  the  author's  theory,  is  proved  untenable 
by  the  facts.  The  following  example  will  suffice 
here  as  an  illustration.5  Eh  bien,  quandf  ai  ete 
pere,  fed  compris  Dieu.  Balzac,  Pere  Goriot 
(Heath),  p.  152.  (His  children  were  still  alive.) 
The  author  is  wrong  in  denying  inchoative  value 
to  aimer  ;  even  in  the  past  definite  he  refuses  to 
accept  such  a  meaning  (p.  51),  and  it  is  in  fact 
not  present  in  the  case  he  cites  on  p.  42.  The 
real  inchoative  use,  however,  is  not  infrequent  in 
this  verb.  Moreover,  it  would  be  equally  hard 
upon  Schaechtelin's  theory,  to  account  for  the 
following  reflexive  used  inchoatively  :  C'estpour- 
tant  comme  cela  qu' on  s'  aime  ,  etc.  Hugo,  Les 
Miserables  (Heath),  p.  205. 

The  same  desire  to  prove  that  statum  never 
allows  the  idea  of  growth  or  change  in  the  forms 
where  it  occurs  as  ete  leads  to  the  denial  that  etre 
is  ever  used  in  the  sense  of  aller,  although  it  is 
later  admitted  that  a  somewhat  similar  meaning 
is  found  in  the  past  definite  alone  (p.  56).  This 
usage  of  etre  has  probably  nothing  to  do  with  in- 
choative value,  but  shows  how  readily  an  addi- 
tional shade  of  meaning  is  derived  from  the  con- 
text when  favored  by  the  nature  of  the  tense. 
The  general  statement,  nevertheless,  demands 
correction.  The  following  example  can  leave  no 
doubt  as  to  its  value  in  this  case  :  Je  suis  quasi 
grand1  m^re,  c'est  un  etat  oil  I' on  n'est  guere 
I'objet  de  la  medisance:  quand  on  a  etejusque-la 
sans  se  decrier,  on  se  peut  vanter  d' avoir  acheve  sa 
carriere.  Mme.  de  Sevigne",  Lettres,  n,  5  (Grands 
Ecrivains  edition).  The  use  of  an  infinitive  of 
purpose  shows  further  that  the  verb  is  considered 
one  of  motion  in  the  following  example  : 6  Apeine 
snis-je  arrive  a  Paris,  qu'  on  a  ete  dire  a  I'o- 

Romanischen  Sprachmssenschaft.  Beiheft  26  zur  ZRPh., 
Halle,  1910,  The  hesitation  in  Latin  between  s?tm  -f- 
participle  and  fui  -f-  participle  is  definitely  against  the 
idea  of  inchoative  value.  Cf.  pp.  97-106;  136-163. 
For  reference  to/u  morz,fu  nez,  cf.  pp.  158-159. 

5  For  other  examples,  parallel  to  those  which  Schaechte- 
lin accepts  in  the  past  definite,  also  of  aimer,  see  Laub- 
scher,  The  Past  Tenses  in  French,  Balto.,  1909,  pp.  25-27. 

6  It  can  not  but  appear  remarkable  that  Schaechtelin 
should  refer  to  such  infinitives  of  purpose  as  "objects" 
(p.  55).     His  statement  as  to  their  use  seems  doubtful. 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


reille  d'un  grand  ministre,  etc.   Voltaire,  Oeuvres, 
Paris,  1876,  Vol.  x,  p.  126,  column  2. 

Inchoative  value  is  a  phenomenon  much  more 
extended  than  would  be  supposed  from  this  work 
(p.  51).  I  have  tried  elsewhere  to  show  that  it 
occurs  in  all  tenses,  in  varying  degrees,  and  is  an 
additional  shade  of  meaning  favored  by  the  con- 
text and  admitted  by  the  verb.7  The  Indo-Eu- 
ropean etymology  of  fut  can  not  be  used  as  proof 
in  this  discussion,  for  the  kindred  English  "  to 
be ' '  and  German  ' '  bin  ' '  show  no  particular  fit- 
ness for  such  meaning.  The  inchoative  value  in 
general  is  not  an  analogy,  but  is  a  widespread 
possibility  among  verbs. 

The  explanation  of  the  double  compound  form 
of  the  past  indefinite  next  demands  attention. 
The  following  four  examples  are  the  only  ones 
which  I  have  noted  in  the  examination  of  a  con- 
siderable number  of  texts.  Quand  M.  Foucquet  a 
eu  c  ess  c  de  parler,  Pussort  s' est  leve,  etc.  Se* v. , 
o.  c.,  i,  459.  Quand  il  a  ete  parti,  M.  le 
chancclier  a  dit,  etc.  Ibid.,  I,  461.  11  n'apas 
manque  de  lesfaire  porter  chez  le  messager  deux 
heures  apres  qu'il  a  e  ste  p arty  de  Paris.  Bal- 
zac, Lettres,  p.  154  (Paris,  1873).  Etc' est  apres 
qu'il  a  ete  parti  que  M.  de  Climal  s' est f ache, 
etc.  Marivaux,  La  vie  de  Marianne,  p,  107 
(Paris,  Charpeutier,  n.  d. ). 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  these  passages  there  is 
no  approach  to  inchoative  value,  and  that  the 
combination  formed  with  avoir  seems  infrequent 
compared  with  the  compound  of  etre.  That/ai 
eu  was  used  popularly  in  the  time  of  Mine,  de 
Se  vigne"  without  inchoative  value,  even  if  it  is  not 
now  (c/.  p.  68),  is  shown  in  the  expression  :  Un 
bonheur  que  vous  n'av  ez  pas  e u,  etc.  S6v.,  ibid. , 
n,  112. 

The  examples  given  above  show  that  these 
double  compound  forms  are  parallel  to  the  other 
surcomposes.  In  every  case  they  are  used  to  show 
action  anterior  to  a  past  indefinite,  in  analogy  to 
the  common  construction  in  which  a  past  indefi- 
nite gives  time  previous  to  a  present.  Schaechte- 
lin's  conclusions  as  to/  ai  eu  aime  upon  the  basis 
of/  ai  eu  coupe  les  cheveux  is  unfounded.  He 

1  Cf.  o.  c.,  pp.  16-40.  Inchoative  value  is  in  no  way 
derived  from  its  use  in  a  series,  in  succession,  although  it 
readily  occurs  here.  Schaechtelin  has  misunderstood  the 
meaning  of  p.  39  ;  c/.  Schaechtelin,  p.  52,  note. 


has  been  misled  by  the  latter  construction,  which 
may  be  seen  well  in  Commynes,  Memoires  (Paris, 
1840),  p.  68  :  Tons  ceulx  de  la  maison  de  Warvic 
et  de  Sornbres«et  y  ont  eu  les  tastes  trench  ees 
ou  mors  en  bataille.  This  is  entirely  independent 
of  the  tense  under  discussion,  and  is  not  to  be 
considered  here. 

In  conclusion,  it  must  be  added  that  too  much 
has  been  said  in  the  work  of  fine  stylistic  devices 
in  the  older  language  at  the  expense  of  the  modern 
tongue.  The  present  language  has  a  more  accu- 
rate insight  into  the  relation  of  things,  and  stresses 
these  where  the  older  language  vacillated.  The 
less  frequent  appearance  of  the  past  definite  is 
the  result,  not  of  artificial  rules  (cf.  p.  83),  but 
of  the  decreased  residual  value  of  the  tense  as  the 
language  becomes  more  and  more  accurate  in  its 
desire  to  stress  the  various  aspects  of  an  activity, 
while  there  is  no  loss  of  liberty  in  expression  as  a 
result. 

GUSTAV  G.  LAUBSCHER. 

Randolph- Macon  Woman's  College. 


Concessive  Constructions  in  Old  English  Prose. 
JOSEPHINE  MAY  BURNHAM.  New  York  :  Holt 
and  Company,  1911.  [Yale  Studies  in  Eng- 
lish, xxxix.]  8vo.,  135  pp. 

Dr.  Burnham's  thesis,  the  fourth  study  of  Old 
English  syntax  to  issue  from  Professor  Albert  S. 
Cook's  Seminar,  is  a  very  meritorious  piece  of 
work.  Like  her  predecessors,  she  has  laid  under 
tribute  the  whole  list  of  available  prose  texts, 
about  fifty-five  in  all.  The  mere  reading  of  so 
much  material  is  no  small  task.  In  addition  to 
this,  her  subject  is  one  most  difficult  of  delimita- 
tion ;  for  the  concessive  idea,  beyond  any  other, 
perhaps,  is  elusive  as  a  will-o'  -wisp,  and  appears 
in  as  many  varying  shapes  and  shades  of  lumi- 
nosity. 

In  her  portrayal  of  this  phenomenon,  Dr.  Burn- 
ham  has  employed  due  delicacy  of  discernment 
and  due  caution  in  approach.  If  the  image  she 
can  catch  is  not  always  clear  and  sharp  in  out- 
line, the  fault  is  attributable  not  to  herself  or  her 
method,  but  rather  to  the  inherent  impossibility 
of  fitting  into  four-square  analytical  category  an 
essence  so  ethereal.  She  has,  in  consequence, 


256 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


frankly  abandoned  for  the  most  part  the  statis- 
tical and  tabular  element  usually  found  helpful  in 
essays  of  this  kind,  and  has  also,  in  comparison 
with  others,  given  by  quotation  or  citation  rela- 
tively scant  illustrative  material.  However,  one 
feels  instinctively  that  she  herself  has  carefully 
pondered  all,  and  has  let  little  that  is  of  signifi- 
cance escape  her. 

In  consequence,  the  omission  of  this  does  not 
mar,  though  one  may  feel  that  its  inclusion  would 
have  given  added  perfection.  A  monograph  must 
give  data  for  inference,  even  though  inference 
itself  be  left  unstated  or  else  condensed  for  lack 
of  space.  Only  thus  can  come  to  the  user  repose 
and  the  utter  abandon  of  confidence  at  every  turn. 
And  just  this  quality  is  sometimes  lacking.  To 
illustrate,  no  one  would  question  the  author's  con- 
clusion on  page  25  that  the  optative  nearly  always 
follows  fteah,  and  that  the  indicative  may  occur, 
in  fact,  does  occur  in  10  cases  out  of  700.  But, 
just  the  same,  who  does  not  long  for  a  quotation 
(or  at  least  a  citation  in  the  Appendix,  where 
stand  others  certainly  less  noteworthy)  of  these 
very  exceptions  to  the  rule  ?  And  this  longing 
is  all  the  more  acute  because  of  the  author's 
ample  justification  (see  page  24,  end)  of  two  of 
these  rare  indicatives — JBoethius,  31.  10  and 
Lives  of  Saints,  1.  150.  35.  Let  us  hope  that 
she  will  yet  publish  from  her  notes  a  list  of  all 
indicatives  after  fteah  (Se)  concessive. 

Chapter  i  is  introductory  in  nature.  First 
therein  is  stated  the  relation  of  the  concessive 
clause  to  that  of  condition  :  ' '  The  conditional 
sentence  contains  a  hypothesis  and  a  conclusion 
contingent  upon  the  truth  of  that  hypothesis  ; 
the  concessive  sentence  contains  a  hypothesis,  or 
a  fact,  and  a  conclusion  independent  thereof." 
In  like  manner,  concession  may  lie  close  akin  to 
cause  :  ' '  when  a  negative  assertion  or  command 
is  expressed,  with  a  reason  tending  to  an  opposite 
conclusion,  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  decide 
whether  the  minor  clause  is  causal  or  conces- 
sive";  as  in  jElfric's  Homilies,  2.  216.  24,  ne 
yrsige  he  nateshwon  wiS  us,  fteah  %e  ( '  because  ' 
or  '  though ' )  we  Godes  bebodu  mannum  geo- 
penian. 

With  like  brevity  and  clarity  the  inter-rela- 
tionship of  concessive  clauses  among  themselves 
is  next  formulated.  All  concessions,  when  classi- 


fied according  to  the  speaker's  approach  to  the 
sentence,  fall  into  three  groups :  the  simple,  the 
disjunctive,  and  the  indefinite.  "The  simple 
concession  contains  a  fact  or  notion  in  spite  of 
which  the  main  proposition  stands";  as  in  Boe- 
thius,  106.  14  Seah  he  eall  wille,  he  ne  maeg.  The 
disjunctive,  or  alternative  concession  introduces 
mutually  exclusive  possibilities,  in  spite  of  either 
of  which  the  proposition  is  maintained  ;  as  in 
Soliloquies  24.  1,  sam  ic  wylle,  sam  ic  nelle,  ic 
sceal  secgan  nide  riht.  The  indefinite  concession 
generalizes  the  situation  :  the  main  proposition  is 
asserted  in  spite  of  any  possibility,  no  matter  what 
the  case  may  be  ;  as  in  Codex  Diplomaticus,  4. 
118.  17,  ga  land  and  feoh  into  sancte  Augustine 
...  si  abbod  se  t5e  si. 

Upon  this  three-fold  distinction  is  the  larger 
structure  of  the  book  based  ;  Chapter  n  treats  of 
the  simple  concession  ;  Chapters  in  and  iv,  of 
the  disjunctive ;  and  in  Chapter  v  are  discussed 
the  elusive  and  Protean  indefinite  concessions. 
The  remaining  chapters — vi  to  ix — treat  specific 
constructions  which  for  clearest  presentation  are 
not  amenable  to  one  of  the  three  classes  just 
mentioned. 

Chapter  n  treats  of  the  simple  concessive  clause. 
It  is  introduced  usually  by  fteah  or  fteah  %e,  the 
latter  being  preferred  by  JElfric  (who  uses  also 
almost  exclusively  fty  Ices  fte,  instead  of  $y  Ices, 
before  the  final  clause).1  Rarely  swa  fteah  and 
swa  fteah  ftcet  (Se)  have  concessive  force.  Almost 
unique  and  very  doubtful  are  hwcefiere  and  its 
compounds.  Deah  (fte)  may  be  reinforced  by  a 
prefixed  eall,  eac  swylce,  ge,  or  and,  or  else  by  a 
following  nu.  Any  concessive  conjunctive  may 
be  balanced  by  a  correlative  word  or  phrase  in 
the  main  clause  :  .such  are  %eah,  swa  fteah, 
hwtxftere,  (swa)  fteah,  hum,  for  eallwn  ftisum, 
and  certain  comparative  expressions,  frequently 
stereotyped,  such  as  na  fty  Ices.  Dr.  Burnham's 
list  here  seems  to  be  complete,  though  she  might 
have  added  ftea h  fte  .  .  .  huru  ftinga,  of  Homilien 
und  Heiligenleben  141.  86. 

Due  mention  is  next  made  of  fteah  idiomatic, 
meaning  if  interrogative  after  expressions  of  won- 
der, and  whether  after  nytan,  uncuft,  and  possibly 
weald,  as  in  Psalm  50.  6,  nis  hit  nan  wundor  Sean 

1  See  pages  94-99  of  my  The  Expression  of  Purpose  in  Old 
English  Prose.  Holt  &  Co.,  1903. 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


257 


Su  sy  god  ;  Boethius  101.  6,  wundrian  Seah  we 
spyrien  ;  id.  64.  9,  ic  nat  Seah  Su  wene. 

The  mode  of  the  simple  concession  is  shown  to 
be  nearly  always  optative,  whether  the  clause  be 
one  of  fact  or  of  hypothesis.  A  very  few  indic- 
atives occur— just  where  and  why  one  cannot  help 
wishing  to  know.  I  happen  to  recall  three  such, 
in  each  case  with  a  negative  major  clause  :  Exodus 
11.  9,  ne  hyrS  Faroa  inc,  Seah  tie  fela  tacnu  sind 
gewordene  ;  Beowulf  1613,  nenom  he  ...  maSm- 
aehta  ma,  Seah  he  Sser  monige  geseah  ;  John  21. 
11,  Sa  (temporal-concessive)  hyra  swa  faela  waes, 
nses  Saet  net  tobrocen. 

Chapter  in  discusses  the  disjunctive  clause  of 
concession,  introduced  by  sam  and  by  the  corre- 
lated swa  .  .  .  swa  .  .  .  swcefier  ;  as  in  Soliloquies 
24.  1,  sam  ic  wylle,  sam  ic  nelle,  ic  sceal  secgan 
nide  riht  ;  Boethius  110.  27,  forSaem  Sset  is  se 
betsta  anwald  Sset  mon  msege  and  wille  wel  don, 
swa  Isessan  spedum,  swa  maran,  swaaSer  he  hsebbe. 
The  mode  in  the  first  type,  when  determinable,  is 
always  optative  ;  in  the  second,  both  indicative 
and  optative  are  found,  though  the  latter  is  far 
more  frequent. 

Chapter  rv  presents  the  inverted  concessive 
clause  without  conjunction.  Such  are  practically 
always  disjunctive,  like  those  in  Chapter  in  ; 
e.  g.t  jfilfric's  Homilies  1.  532.  7,  we  sceolon, 
wylle  we  nelle  we,  arisan  (cf.  modern  English 
'  willy  nilly').  In  a  few  late  passages,  a  series 
of  inverted  concessive  clauses  is  followed  by  an 
indefinite  clause  of  the  same  form  as  the  indefinite 
concessions  treated  in  the  paragraph  below.  The 
indefinite  clause  sums  up  not  only  the  cases  named, 
but  all  possible  cases  ;  as  in  Laws  282.  13,  bete 
man  georne  be  Ssem  Se  seo  deed  sy,  sy  hit  Surh 
feohtlac,  si  hit  Surh  reaflac,  sig  Surh  Sset  Se  hit 
sy.  For  simple  concessions,  however,  in  Old  Eng- 
lish the  inverted  paratactic  clause  was  not  used, 
though  it  appears  within  the  Middle  English 
period  :  cf.  Scott,  Talisman,  ch.  28,  by  this  hand 
thou  shalt,  wert  thou  the  proudest  Plantagenet  of 
the  line.  Whether  disjunctive  or  indefinite,  the 
mode  of  the  inverted  verb  is  invariably  optative. 
This,  Dr.  Burnham  with  commendable  caution 
suggests,  may  possibly  be  of  hortatory  origin. 

Chapter  v  presents  the  third  type,  indefinite 
concessions.  These  are  native  and  rather  ar- 
chaic, abounding  in  the  Laws,  Chronicles,  and 


Charters.  They  originate  in  an  indefinite  clause 
of  permission,  which  lends  itself  to  concessive  use 
by  a  logical  process  somewhat  as  follows  : — "I 
give  my  consent  to  some  undefined  procedure  ; 
that  means  that  I  accept  the  consequences.  The 
idea  of  some  contrasted  result  taking  place  in  spite 
of  this  procedure — though  it  be  only  acceptance  of 
consequences — is  involved  in  the  nature  of  such  a 
permission."  Such  clauses  of  permissory  or  quasi- 
permissory  form  are  always  found  to  contain  an 
integral  indefinite  (or  interrogative)  pronoun,  or 
an  indefinite  adverb  or  adverbial  expression,  as 
illustrated  in  the  following  : —  Codex  Diplomatics 
3.  362.  29,  sy  efre  seo  selmesse  gelest  gearhwaem- 
lice,  age  land  seSe  age  ;  id.  4.  299.  13,  swa  hwylc 
man  swa  Sa  socne  ahe,  sanctus  Benedictus  habbe 
his  freedom  ;  id.  4.  226.  24,  ic  habbe  geunnen 
Wulfrice  Saet  abbodrice  in  Hely  .  .  .,  sitte  his 
mann  Ser  Sser  he  sitte  ;  Chronicles  220.  16,  nan 
man  ne  dorste  slean  oSerne  man,  hsefde  he  naefre 
swa  mycel  yfel  gedon. 

The  mode  of  the  indefinite  concession  is  usually 
the  optative,  of  permissory  origin,  though  the  in- 
dicative occasionally  is  found,  as  in  Institutes  353. 
22,  Swa  hwylc  man  swa  cennende  wif  freo  gedeS, 
Sset  beam  biS  swa-Seah  a  Seow  (Quanquam  quis 
.  .  .  fecerit,  iiifans  tamen  semper  eritservus). 

In  Chapter  vi  are  considered  ' '  Clauses  of  other 
kinds  adapted  to  concessive  use."  These  are  the 
following  :  (1)  The  relative  clause  may  have  con- 
cessive force  merely  through  its  logical  relation  to 
the  context.  In  many  cases,  however,  the  con- 
cessive idea  is  emphasized  ...  by  such  particles 
as  So?we,  hivceftere,  (swa~)  fieah,  huru,  nM,cer(or), 
etc. ;  or  by  means  of  demonstrative  pronouns  : 
Bede  440.  31,  hwelchwugu  god  dede,  Sa  he 
hwseSre.'.  .  aSeostrade  (bona  aliqua  fecit,  quse 
tamen  .  .  .  obnubilarit) ;  Boethius  116.  26,  Sa 
menn  Se  Sisum  leasungum  gelefdon,  Seah  wisston. 
(2)  The  temporal  clause,  introduced  by  Sa(Sa), 
stSScw,  mid  Sy,  miites,  ftonne,  and  nu,  often  passes 
into  concessive  function.  The  usual  correlating 
particles  may  stand  in  the  major  clause  to  focus 
more  sharply  the  concessive  idea  : — Wulfstan  12. 
14,  Sa  Sa  Saet  wses  Sset  deofol  Sset  folc  swa  mistlice 
dwelede  .  .  .  Sa  waes  Seah  an  msegS  Se  aefre  weor- 
Sode  Sone  soSan  godd.  (3)  The  local  clause, 
also,  may  under  the  same  conditions  become  con- 
cessive : — Apothegms  24,  Sser  Sser  Su  neode  irsian 


258 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


scyle,  gemetiga  Sset  Seah.  (4)  So  the  condi- 
tional, as  in  Leigh  Hunt,  Wishingcap  Papers,  p. 
240,  Garth  was  often  at  Hampstead,  if  he  never 
lived  there  : — Benedictinerregel  54.  13,  gif  hwylc 
broSor  unasceadelice  hwses  bidde,  he  fceah  .  .  . 
him  ue  geunrotsige.  (5)  A  correlated  clause  of 
comparison,  formally  modal,  may  be  virtually 
concessive  : — Dialogues  116.  21,  swa  ic  swySor 
drince,  swa  me  swySor  SyrsteS.  (6)  A  definite 
expression  of  degree  may  pass  into  a  logical  con- 
cession : — Orosius  152.  13,  swa  ealde  swa  hie  $a 
wseron  hie  gefuhton. 

Of  these  six  types,  most  clearly  native  are  the 
correlatives  with  swa,  (5).  The  most  clearly 
derived  from  Latin  is  the  conditional  concession, 
(4).  The  remaining  four  forms  "seem  to  have 
risen,  in  some  degree,  independently,  but  to  have 
had  their  chief  development  in  translation. ' '  As 
to  mode,  the  great  majority  of  the  clauses  in  each 
of  the  six  types — apart  from  conditional  conces- 
sions, (4) — have  the  indicative.  "Each  .  .  . 
follows  in  this  rather  its  own  individual  usage." 
The  mode  is  thus  unaffected  by  the  concessive 
idea. 

Chapter  vn  presents  paratactic  clauses  of  con- 
cession, whether  coordinated  by  means  of  a  con- 
junction, or  whether  merely  juxtaposed,  with  no 
connective  whatever.  This  usage  is  naturally 
characteristic  of  the  loose-built  style  of  such  texts 
as  Orosius  and  the  Chronicles.  Examples  are  : — 
Chronicles  48.  29,  he  his  feorh  generede  and  Seah 
he  wses  oft  gewundad  ;  De  Temporibus  13.  10, 
seo  sunne  Sa  stod  .  .  .  ac  se  dseg  code  forfi  ;  Lives 
of  Saints  1.  458.  226,  sum  wer  wses  betogen  Sset 
he  wsere  on  stale — wses  swaSeah  unscyldig.  The 
concession  may  be  coordinated  with  even  a  subor- 
dinate clause,  as  in  Wulfstan  219.  19,  8am  biS  wa 
sefre  geborenum,  $e  hit  secgan  can  and  ne  wille. 

In  Chapter  viu  is  discussed  the  concessive  use 
of  phrases  and  single  words.  These  condensed 
concessions  are  somewhat  rare,  and  are  interesting 
because  of  their  persistence  into  modern  speech. 
The  phrases  so  used  are  prepositional  and  fall  into 
two  classes.  In  the  one  the  concessive  meaning  is 
to  be  felt  merely  from  the  context ;  in  the  other  it 
is  more  nearly  inherent  in  the  preposition  employed, 
usually  for,  expressing  an  ineffective  cause,  and 
hence  a  concession.  Illustrations  are  : — Chroni- 
cles 136.  17,  ac  for  eallum  Sisum  (in  spite  of  this) 


se  here  ferde  ;  id.  440.  10,  buton  6am  (in  spite  of 
that)  hi  hergodan  ;  Lives  of  Saints  1.  332.  167, 
he  is  forfti  (nevertheless)  be  feoi-Sa.  Also,  appo- 
sitive  nouns,  adjectives,  and  participles  may  ap- 
pear with  more  or  less  of  concessive  force  : — jiEl- 
fric's  Homilies  1.  588.  28,  ic  wundrige  Se,  snotere 
wer  (though  a  wise  man),  8set  Su  Syssere  lare 
fylian  wylt ;  Benedictinerregel  13.  12,  forSon  ge 
Seow  ge  freoh  ealle  we  synd  on  Criste  ;  Matthew 
13,  13,  lociende  hig  rie  geseoS.  The  absolute 
participle  is  possibly  concessive  in  such  sentences 
as  John  20.  26,  se  Hselend  com,  belocenum 
durum. 

I  have  purposely  spared  comment,  believing 
that  the  above  re'sume'  will  best  present  the  excel- 
lence of  the  study.  However,  I  cannot  suppress 
the  wish  that  Dr.  Burnham  may  soon  find  it  in  her 
heart  to  prepare  another  similar  essay — perhaps, 
upon  the  expression  of  comparison  and  manner  in 
Old  English,  a  labor  for  which  she  is  admirably 
fitted  by  virtue  of  the  keen  vision  and  the  accurate 
sense  of  syntactical  value  she  has  shown  in  this 
present  volume. 

HUBERT  G.  SHEAKIN. 

Transylvania  University. 


Spanish  Short  Stories,  edited  with  introduction, 
notes  and  vocabulary,  by  ELIJAH  CLARENCE 
HILLS  and  LOUISE  REINHARDT.  Boston,  D. 
C.  Heath  and  Co.,  1910.  xviii  +  323  pp. 
(Text,  200  pp. ) 

Numerous  collections  of  Spanish  stories  have 
been  published  in  text-book  form.  The  present 
volume  differs  from  others  in  its  distinct  literary 
aim.  The  editors  offer,  in  fact,  by  criticism  and 
by  illustration,  a  survey  of  Spanish  prose  fiction 
in  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  Introduction  by  Prof.  Hills  is  a  careful  and 
judicious  study  of  Spanish  fiction  from  1800  down 
to  Blasco  Ibajiez.  The  essentially  regional  nature 
of  the  realistic  novel  is  duly  demonstrated,  and 
the  characterizations  of  individual  authors  are 
especially  apt  and  just.  Two  paragraphs  at  the 
close  are  devoted  to  the  little-known  subject  of 
fiction  in  Spanish  America. 

The  same  knowledge  and  literary  taste  appear 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


259 


in  the  selection  of  material.  The  intention  lias 
evidently  been  to  exhibit  the  short-story  genre 
with  as  much  fullness  and  variety  as  possible. 
No  extracts  from  novels  are  included,  and  each 
story  is  practically  complete  in  its  original  form 
(except  for  the  selections  from  the  Eacenas  monta- 
ftesas').  Of  the  fourteen  stories,  two  (among  the 
best)  are  by  Spanish-American  authors  ;  Larra, 
BScquer,  Trueba,  Campillo,  Alarcon,  Fernan  Ca- 
ballero,  Pereda,  Pardo  Bazdn,  Perez  Galdos  and 
Blasco  Ibdiiez  are  represented  by  one  example 
each,  and  Palacio  Valdes  by  two.  In  other  words, 
Valera  is  the  only  prominent  name  we  miss  ;  and 
we  understand  that  no  entirely  suitable  tale  of 
his,  short  and  complete,  could  be  found.  The 
collection  includes  such  sterling  specimens  of  the 
narrator's  art  as  Larra' s  Castellano  viejo,  Palacio 
ValdeV  Los  Puritanos  and  Campillo' s  Vino  y 
frailes ;  Spanish  realism  at  its  best  appears  in  the 
extracts  from  Pereda' s  La  Leva.  The  desire  to 
represent  as  many  authors  as  possible  entails  the 
weakness  of  certain  numbers,  which  could  hardly 
hold  up  their  heads  in  a  European  literary  con- 
gress. One  might  wish  it  possible  to  represent 
Trueba  and  Fernan  Caballero  by  short  examples 
containing  less  dross  in  proportion  to  the  gold, 
but  it  is  safe  to  suppose  that  the  editors  con- 
ducted their  search  with  all  human  diligence. 

The  stories  are  meant  to  be  arranged  in  order 
of  difficulty,  and  in  a  general  way  the  end  is  at- 
tained. Use  in  the  class-room  indicates  however 
that  El  Castellano  viejo  should  stand  nearer  the 
end  of  the  series  ;  El  Voto  likewise  is  doubtless  too 
near  the  front  cover. 

The  editorial  work  is  uniformly  thorough  and 
painstaking.  The  Notes  deal  almost  entirely  with 
grammatical  difficulties  ;  idioms  and  biographical 
and  geographical  comment  are  placed  in  the 
Vocabulary.  The  latter  is  unusually  large  (ap- 
proximately 5800  words  :  cf.  among  other  large 
vocabularies,  El  capitdn  Eibot,  ca.  4400  ;  Ma- 
rianela,  4800  ;  La  Barraca,  5000  ;  Dona  Per- 
fecta,  6800),  and  its  size  indicates  sufficiently 
that  these  stories  should  not  be  attempted  by 
beginners.  Special  locutions  are  rendered  with 
much  care. 

The  following  suggestions  and  corrections,  slight 
in  comparison  with  the  bulk  of  the  book,  are  of- 
fered. 


Notes.    19,  n.  2,  j  Que  habtade  huir  !  is  better 
rendered  'of  course  I  haven't  run  away! '    56,  n. 

1,  not  '  this  was  not  the  time  for  compliance ',  but 
'  for  dreaming'.    58,  n.  2,  is  not  very  illuminat- 
ing ;   there  are  passages  in  Cervantes'  Gitanilla 
which  tell  much  more  about  gypsies'  ability  to 
transform  animals.     60,  n.  1  ;  an  explanation  of 
the  construction  of  se  lo  quedard  el  patron  would 
be  valuable,  if  one  can  be  found.    66,  n.  3  ;  since 
mention  is  made  of  the  little-known  painter  Juan 
Bautista   Maino,  it   would   be   well  to  state  the 
period  in  which  he  lived  (1569-1649)  and  that 
the  picture  in  question  is  in  the  Prado.    68,  n.  1 ; 
a  better  rendering  would  be  '  which  were  still  no 
more  than  hopes  '.     98,  1.  17  ;  the  antecedent  of 
esas  should  be  pointed  out.     102,  1.  13  ;  lo  contra- 
puesto  needs  comment ;  does  it  mean  '  the  contra- 
dictory nature'?    Ill,  n.  4,  should  be  transferred 
to  100,  1.  25,  where  the  phrase  first  occurs.     151, 
n.  1 ;  the  reference  probably  is  to  the  festival  of 
San  Isidro  ;  cf.  K.  L.  Bates,  Spanish  Highways 
and  Byways,  p.  228.     173,  n.  1,  displays  ignor- 
ance of  the  existence  of  the  verb  trincar,  '  to  swal- 
low '  from  the  Germanic  stem  trinken. 

Vocabulary.  The  following  omissions  have  been 
noted  (words  similar  in  form  to  English  are  not 
given):  18,  24,  temperatura,  '(warm)  weather.' 
106,  25,  Jiocico,  'snout'.  128,  30,  loza,  'porce- 
lain '  (and  the  meaning  '  porcelain  '  should  be  re- 
moved from  under  losa").  154,  4,  corro,  'group'. 
175,  11,  previo,  'presupposing'.  175,12,  orien- 
tarse,  'to  find  one's  bearings'.  186,  1,  mentado, 
'famous'.  188,  21  and  193,  18,  fiel,  'faithful'. 
191,  19,  celaje,  'cloud'.  193,  21,  plan,  'plain' 
(a rare  meaning).  194,  28,  pe6n,  'laborer'.  196, 

2,  tras,  'behind'.     198,  12,  tascar,  'to  champ'. 
In   the-  following   cases  the  second  important 

member  of  a  phrase  is  omitted  from  the  vocabu- 
lary, the  whole  phrase  being  given  under  the  first 
member.  Both  words  should  have  a  place  in  the 
vocabulary.  83,  1,  empotrada  en  un  poyo ;  144, 
8,  timbales  de  macarrones;  157,  17,  columnilla 
salomonica;  164,  3,  ropas  de  desperdicio ;  169,  20, 
pan  de  municidn;  170,  6,  abriren  canal ;  190,  3, 
cuadras  pianos. 

Additions  and  corrections  :  1,  2,  Ettas,  '  Eli- 
jah'. 30,  5,  burro  mohino,  'hinny'.  79,  1,  Dos 
Hermanas ;  there  should  be  an  item  concerning  the 
location  of  this  village,  made  famous  by  the  third 


260 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


act  of  El  Burlador  de  Sevilla.  107,  4,  cubrir  el 
expediente,  'to  save  appearances';  not  'to  cloak 
over  the  affair  '.  107,  21,  tumbarse,  '  to  lodge  or 
be  lodged  '.  117,  8,  vino  moro;  the  origin  of  the 
meaning  'pure  wine'  should  be  explained.  157, 
12,  silleria,  'choir-stalls'.  173,  2,  trincar,  'to 
drink '  (cf.  above  under  Notes').  173,  9-10,  sol/ear 
d  Una,  rather  '  to  cudgel '  than  '  to  beat  into 
kindling-wood'.  182,  22,  entregada,  'bound- 
girl'.  185,  28  ;  does  ponw  verde  a  alguno  mean 
'  to  accuse  one  of  perversity '  or  rather  '  to  flay, 
scold  severely '  ?  190,  7,  patillas,  '  side- whis- 
kers'. 191,  20,  agasajo,  'gift'.  194,  18,  cigarro, 
'  cigarette ' . 

Misprints,  xiii,  7  from  below,  Trafalgar,  read 
Trafalgar,  xvi,  10,  read  La  hermana  San  Sul- 
picio.  36,  22,  a,  read  a.  37,  16,  sera,  read  serd. 
43,  24,  Como,  read  Como.  49,  27,  que,  read  que. 
80,  3,  drabes  ;  read  drabes,  .  95,  2,  propria,  read 
propia.  132,  13,  mi,  read  mi.  134,  1,  omit  de. 
173,  28,  qualquiera,  read  cualquiera.  191,  3, 
arteza,  read  artesa.  195,  15,  castilla,  read  Cos- 
faVJa.  In  the  Vocabulary,  under  bachiller,  for  de 
humanidades  read  e?i  humanidades  (192,  7). 
Under  Genieys,  for  Aviron  read  Aveyron. 

This  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  scholarly  and 
best  edited  collections  of  miscellaneous  short  stories 
now  accessible  for  advanced  reading. 

S.  GRISWOLD  MORLEY. 
University  of  Colorado. 


The  Riddles  of  the  Exeter  Book,  edited  with  in- 
troduction, notes,  and  glossary  by  FREDERICK 
TUPPER,  JR.,  Professor  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage and  Literature  in  the  University  of  Ver- 
mont. Boston  :  Ginn  and  Company,  1910. 
The  Albion  Series.  Pp.  cxi  -f-  292. 

This  volume,  the  latest  addition  to  the  Albion 
Series,  is  the  first  separate  edition  of  an  extremely 
difficult  text.  Since  the  publication  of  Thorpe's 
Codex  Exoniensis  (1842),  however,  the  Riddles 
have  been  the  subject  of  many  studies,  so  that 
this  edition  has  been  preceded  by  much  clearing 
of  the  ground.  Professor  Tupper's  own  prelimi- 
nary studies  for  this  edition,  comprise  articles 
in  Modern  Language  Notes,  xviu,  1-8,  97-106  ; 


xxi,  97-105  ;  The  Publications  of  the  Modern 
Language  Association,  xviu,  211-272  ;  and  Mod- 
ern Philology,  n,  561-572  ;  and  his  supplement- 
ary article  in  Modern  Language  Notes,  xxv, 
235-241,  "The  Cynewulfian  Runes  of  the  First 
Riddle."  To  these  will  hardly  be  denied  the 
chief  importance  among  the  preceding  contribu- 
tions, being  entitled  to  this  place  by  reason  of 
their  scientific  method,  their  painstaking  thorough- 
ness, and  their  fruitfuluess. 

The  text  here  offered  presents  advantages  over 
that  of  previous  editions.  Accuracy  has  been 
obtained  by  first-hand  examination  of  the  manu- 
script. The  editor  has  also  been  able  to  diminish 
to  some  extent  the  lacunae  in  the  damaged  por- 
tions of  the  text,  for  since  the  manuscript  had 
been  last  collated  the  strips  of  vellum  pasted  over 
the  manuscript  at  such  places  have  become  loos- 
ened, and  it  has  been  found  possible  to  read  some 
letters  previously  concealed.  Further,  the  read- 
ings in  some  places  now  illegible  have  been  recov- 
ered from  the  transcript,  hitherto  unaccountably 
neglected,  made  in  1831-1832,  and  preserved  in  the 
British  Museum.  On  the  other  hand,  Professor 
Tupper  has  carefully  refrained  from  accepting 
or  proposing  conjectures  prompted  by  any  prede- 
termined notion  of  a  solution  or  by  any  a  priori 
metrical  theory.  Readers  will  recall  his  vigorous 
protest  against  text-tinkering  in  The  Publications 
of  the  Modern  Language  Association,  xxv, 
164-181. 

The  editor  gives  (in  indexes)  all  the  solutions 
that  have  at  any  time  been  proposed.  He  gives 
a  number  of  new  solutions  of  his  own  ;  e.  g.,  to 
Riddles  14,  74,  and  95,  previously  published, 
and  to  20,  37,  40,  42,  56,  and  71.  In  arriving 
at  these  solutions,  and  in  deciding  between  diver- 
gent solutions  offered  by  others,  he  has  followed 
the  obviously  correct  principle  that  the  answer  to 
an  eighth-century  riddle  is  not  necessarily  to  be 
obtained  by  making  the  guess  that  seems  best  to 
a  twentieth-century  reader,  but  is  rather  to  be 
reached  by  acquainting  oneself  with  the  entire 
mass  of  riddle-literature  extant  at  that  time  and 
with  folk -riddles  of  later  date.  In  this  way  the 
investigator  acquires  the  point  of  view  of  the 
people  among  whom  these  riddles  circulated. 
The  best  aid  to  the  understanding  of  these  old 
riddles  is  a  knowledge  of  the  customary  motifs  of 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


261 


the  Latin  riddles  that  preceded  them,  and  of  the 
answer  to  be  expected  when  this  or  that  attribute 
is  ascribed  to  the  unknown  x  of  the  riddle.  It  is 
Professor  Tupper's  wide  reading  in  the  Latin 
riddles  beginning  with  Symphosius  and  in  folk- 
riddles,  and  his  constant  adherence  to  sound  prin- 
ciples in  applying  this  reading,  that  give  his  solu- 
tions an  authority  beyond  that  of  guesses,  however 
shrewd. 

The  edition  is  generously  annotated.  As  the 
subjects  of  these  poems,  that  is,  the  answers  to 
the  riddles,,  include  weapons,  garments,  musical 
instruments,  sacred  utensils,  articles  of  food  and 
drink,  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  insects,  trees,  and 
plants,  the  editor  has  embraced  the  occasion  to 
give  ample  information  drawn  from  writings, 
museum  objects,  and  manuscript  illustrations  of 
the  Old  English  period,  and  from  modern 
treatises. 

At  the  time  of  publishing  this  edition  Professor 
Tupper  accepted  the  view  propounded  by  Mr. 
Henry  Bradley,  that  Riddle  1  is  not  a  riddle 
but  an  epic  fragment.  With  this  premise  he 
concluded,  as  the  result  of  a  very  minute  study 
(pp.  Ixiii-lxxix)  that  the  Riddles,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  36,  41,  and  67,  are  the  work  of  one 
author,  a  Northumbrian,  not  Cyiiewulf,  and  per- 
haps of  the  first  half  of  the  eighth  century,  this 
date,  however,  being  "an  inviting  surmise,  un- 
sustained  by  proof."  The  argument  for  unity 
of  authorship  is  especially  well  presented.  The 
differences  in  language  between  the  Riddles  and 
the  poems  containing  the  runic  signature  of  Cyne- 
wulf  are  declared  to  have  little  value  as  evidence, 
either  singly  or  in  combination.  In  the  sentence 
on  page  lix,  "  On  account  of  the  many  noteworthy 
differences  between  the  speech  of  the  problems 
[Riddles]  and  that  of  Cynewulf,  he  [Madert] 
reaches  the  conclusion  .  .  .  that  these  poems  are 
not  the  work  of  that  writer,"  the  word  "note- 
worthy ' '  must  be  taken  as  a  quasi-quotation  from 
Madert,  not  as  an  indication  of  the  editor's  own 
opinion.  The  one  difference  from  recognized 
Cynewulflan  usage  which  is  offered  without  any 
impugning  of  its  merit  as  evidence  is  the  occur- 
rence, noted  by  Herzfeld,  of  a  stressed  short  syl- 
lable in  the  second  foot  of  type  A,  when  no  sec- 
ondary stress  precedes.  Of  this  sixteen  instances 
are  cited  (p.  Ix,  note  *).  Yet  we  are  told  (p. 


lix),  "The  evidence  of  meter,  language,  and  style 
certainly  speaks  against  the  theory  of  Cynewulfian 
authorship."  This  must  now  seem  to  the  editor 
to  have  been  incautious,  but  apart  from  this  sen- 
tence, it  would  be  hard  to  find  anything  of  which 
he  need  repent,  although  in  his  subsequent  article, 
already  cited,  he  has  changed  his  opinion  com- 
pletely with  regard  to  a  point  fundamental  to  the 
whole  question  of  authorship,  namely,  the  nature 
and  interpretation  of  Riddle  1.  It  is  the  irony 
of  fate  that  this  discovery  should  have  been  made 
too  late  to  be  incorporated  in  the  present  volume. 
Professor  Tupper  now  finds  in  Riddle  1  a  charade 
Oyn-wulf,  and  also  a  runic  acrostic  in  the  order 
FNLCYWTJ,  the  runes  being  represented  by 
synonyms  of  their  names  (lac  =  feoh  =  F ;  ftreat 
=  nyd  =  N;  etc.).  Thus  Cynewulf,  like  Aid- 
helm,  has  announced  at  the  beginning  his  author- 
ship of  the  series  of  riddles.  Professor  Tupper 
shows  that,  intricate  and  far-fetched  as  the  solu- 
tion appears,  it  is  no  stranger  than  what  we  en- 
counter in  authentic  Icelandic  acrostics  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  The  difficulty 
of  Riddle  1  is  thus  not  like  that  of  an  ordinary 
riddle,  where  any  one  can  see  the  appropriateness 
of  the  answer,  once  it  is  known,  but  like  that  of 
a  mathematical  problem,  in  which  the  difficulty 
persists  even  though  the  result  to  be  attained  is 
known. 

The  glossary  omits  fteana  (59.  13  ;  88.  10), 
hangellan  (45.  6),  and  unfum  (26.  1). 

W.  STRUNK,  JR. 
Cornell  University. 


Practical  Lessons  in  French  Grammar,  by  TH. 
COLIN  and  A.  SERAFON.  Boston,  New  York, 
Chicago,  Sanborn  &  Co.,  1910.  16mo.,  xiv  + 
354  pp.1 

This  new  French  grammar  contains  much  that 
is  commendable  and  evidences  the  authors'  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  American  class-room  and  col- 
lege-entrance requirements.  It  never  loses  sight 
of  the  fact  that  French  is  a  living  language,  to  be 
spoken  and  written  by  the  student,  not  merely  to 
be  read  and  translated.  The  texts,  generally  con- 
nected narratives,  on  which  the  oral  and  written 

'This  review  is  based  on  a  revised  and  corrected  edi- 
tion, with  the  same  imprint,  but  issued  in  1911. 


262 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


exercises  are  based,  are  interesting,  well-chosen, 
and  well-graded,  and  should  give  the  student  a 
most  serviceable  working  vocabulary.  The  pro- 
vision made  for  "original  composition  "  is  a  valu- 
able feature.  The  "facts  of  the  language"  are 
often  presented  with  felicitous  originality,  e.  g., 
partitive  expressions,  p.  83  ;  inflection  of  regular 
verbs,  p.  254,  etc. 

In  the  hope  that  a  third  edition  will  further 
perfect  a  book  which  will  undoubtedly  find  many 
friends,  the  following  remarks  and  suggestions  are 
offered. 

In  spite  of  the  thorough  revision  of  the  chapter 
on  pronunciation  in  the  second  edition,  much  re- 
mains to  be  added.  Moreover,  greater  care  should 
be  exercised  in  the  choice  of  examples  :  musee, 
vie,  bleue,  joue,  etc.,  are  unsatisfactory  examples 
for  long  vowels.  In  spite  of  note  3,  the  lengthen- 
ing of  final  vowels  by  a  following  silent  e  is 
generally  considered  a  dialect  characteristic,2  and 
berger  seems  to  have  even  less  justification.  The 
definition  "r.  .  .  [is]  either  trilled  or  uvular," 
makes  a  misleading  confusion  between  place  and 
manner  of  articulation.  Each  r  can  be  trilled  or 
untrilled 

Among  the  rules  for  syllabication,  p.  xxxiii, 
some  statement  concerning  cases  like  es-ptce,  es- 
time,  res-te,  is  imperative  ;  otherwise,  students  do 
not  understand  why  these  e's  take  no  accent, 
while  one  is  required  in  words  like  e-chanye, 
re-gne,  etc.  The  function  of  accent-marks  is  so 
important  and  their  use  is  so  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  so-called  irregularities  of  French 
inflection  that  they  deserve  more  attention  than 
is  here  accorded. 

The  avoiding  of  hiatus  is  given  undue  promi- 
nence in  the  chapter  on  euphony.  One  might 
contend  that  even  the  elision  of  articles  is  not  the 
result  of  an  aversion  to  hiatus  in  the  language. 
And  if,  e.  g.,  the  t  in  a-t-elle  were  imperatively 
demanded  by  "euphony,"  why  not  also  in  the 
case  of  a  elle,  a  eux  ?  The  false  point  of  view  en- 
tails actual  error  in  the  statement  (p.  xxiii,  48) 
that  adjectives  like  beau,  fou,  "have  a  second 
masculine  form  to  be  used  before  a  vowel  or  an 

'See,  e.  g.,  Beyer,  FranzosiscJie  Phonetili,  p.  104  Anm. ; 
Michaelis  and  Passy,  Dictionnaire  Phonetique,  p.  313  and 
316  (where  this  peculiarity  is  ascribed  to  Swiss  and  Bel- 
gian pronunciation). 


7t-mute."  Since  a  knowledge  of  the  alternation 
between  I  and  u  before  consonants  (and  the  pecu- 
liar use  of  a  final  x  after  u)  would  enable  the 
students  to  understand  not  only  these  adjectives, 
but  also  contraction  of  articles,  almost  all  irregu- 
lar plurals  and  many  irregular  verb-forms,  they 
seem  entitled  to  it.  The  brief  allusion  (p.  25 
N.  B. )  to  the  el,  ol  forms  as  "old,"  whereas  they 
have  first  been  designated  as  "second,"  can  but 
confuse  the  students. 

The  whole  treatment  of  the  modes  and  tenses 
would  be  materially  improved  by  a  thorough  re- 
vision. Only  a  few  of  the  remarks  that  might  be 
made  can  find  a  place  here. 

Conditional  sentences  are  not  adequately  treated. 
They  fully  deserve  a  chapter  to  themselves.  It  is 
difficult  to  understand  the  necessity  for  the  state- 
ment, p.  128,  "that  the  subjunctive  is  never 
used  in  an  if-clause,"  since  no  class  can  do  the 
required  reading  without  coming  across  numerous 
examples  of  pluperfect  subjunctives  so  used.  This 
erroneous  statement  is  not  remedied  by  the  foot- 
note, p.  201,  "avoir  and  etre  have  a  literary 
conditional  which  has  the  same  force  as  the  im- 
perfect subjunctive. ' '  But  ' '  il  eut  fait  fortune ' ' 
is  not  the  imperfect  subjunctive  of  avoir  ;  it  is  the 
pluperfect  subjunctive  of  faire.  This  same  con- 
fusion between  the  tense  of  the  auxiliary  and  the 
complete  verb  is  found,  p.  137,  126,  where  "when 
you  have  finished ' '  is  given  as  an  example  of  an 
English  present  substituted  for  a  French  future. 
Moreover,  the  tendency  to  consider  compound 
tenses  as  a  subordinate  variety  of  the  simple 
tenses  is  noticeable  elsewhere.  On  pages  144  and 
145,  a  note  assigns  the  uses  of  the  imperfect  to 
the  pluperfect,  and  a  brief  remark  assigns  the 
uses  of  the  past  definite  to  the  past  anterior.  The 
one  example  of  the  pluperfect,  p.  144,  "  des 
oiseaux  qu'elles  avaient  pris "  cannot,  however, 
be  explained  by  any  of  the  statements  found 
there.  The  idea  of  action  (or  state)  in  continua- 
tion in  the  past  which  is  fundamental  and  constant 
with  the  imperfect,  is  "accidental"  with  the 
pluperfect  (cp.  "il  avait  tue  son  ennemi  du  premier 
coup,"  and  "il  avait  dormi  toute  la  nuit"),  and 
will  greatly  depend  on  the  "  Aktionsart"  of  the 
verb,  and  on  the  context.  The  "constant"  with 
the  pluperfect  is  the  idea  of  completion  prior  to 
a  past  point  of  time.  Moreover,  the  idea  of 


December,  1911.] 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


263 


"duration  prior  to  completion  "  sometimes  con- 
veyed by  the  pluperfect,  is  different  from  the 
idea  of  "progressive  stage"  from  a  past  stand- 
point, with  no  thought  of  completion ,  expressed 
by  the  imperfect.  They  should  not  be  confused. 

In  the  table  on  p.  239,  no  place  is  provided  for 
the  French  "future-to-a-past,"  (il  dit  qu'Uvien- 
drait)  a  frequent  and  most  important  tense-use, 
which  certainly  deserves  as  much  recognition  as 
the  English  "progressive"  conjugation. 

Finally,  the  remark  can  be  made  that  while  the 
general  arrangement  of  the  conjugation  of  verbs 
is  one  of  the  attractive  features  of  the  book,  the 
absorption  of  -oir  verbs  by  the  irregular  -ir  verbs 
is  not  to  be  commended.  Historically,  it  is  not 
justifiable  and,  practically,  the  students  should 
not  be  misled  into  considering  -oir  the  equivalent 
of  ir. 

C.  J.  CIPRIANI. 

Chicago. 


La  Connaissance  de  la  Nature  et  du  Monde  au 
Moyen-Age,  par  CH.  V.  LANGLOIS.  Paris, 
Hachette,  1911.  12mo.,  xxiv  +  400  pp. 

This  volume  is  the  third  and  last  of  a  series,  of 
which  the  first  and  second  have  been  reviewed  in 
these  columns.1  The  general  plan  of  the  author 
is  to  make  known,  as  he  says  in  his  preface  to  the 
present  work,  par  une  methode  nouvelle,  certain 
special  phases  of  medieval  French  history,  and  of 
the  thirteenth  century  in  particular,  which  the 
lettered  public  knows  least  about. 

There  are  six  chapters  in  the  book,  having  to 
do  respectively  with  these  authors  and  subjects  : 
Philippe  de  Thaon's  Lapidaire  and  Bestiaire  ; 
the  Image  du  Monde  ;  Barthelemy  F  Anglais  ;  le 
Roman  de  Sidrach ;  Placides  et  Timeo  and  le  Livre 
du  Tresor.  The  volume  closes  with  a  bibliography 
of  modern  studies  on  nature  phenomena  in  the 
literatures  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  method  of  demonstration  employed  by  M. 
Langlois  is  not  an  entirely  new  one.  The  original 
element  of  his  work  lies  in  the  peculiarly  ingenious 
way  he  has  of  adapting  his  data,  under  one  cover, 
to  the  needs  of  the  scholar  and  the  layman.  There 
is  an  abridged  rendering  into  modern  French  of 
each  medieval  text,  which  affords  material,  for 
the  general  reader,  of  even  greater  interest  than 
that  contained  in  the  two  volumes  previously  pub- 
lished in  this  series.  By  this  means,  the  author 
makes  clear  to  men  of  the  present  day  what  ideas 
concerning  the  physical  world  existed  in  the  minds 
of  thoughtful  men  in  the  Middle  Ages — men  who 
were  cultivated  and  intelligent  although  unfa- 

1  xix,  134-136  ;  xxm,  249-251. 


miliar  with  the  higher  researches  in  this  realm  of 
speculation.  The  point  therefore  of  this  work  is 
not  to  give  a  history  of  the  sciences  and  their  de- 
velopment in  the  thirteenth  century,  but  to  pads 
in  review  those  writings,  in  the  vernacular,  on 
natural  phenomena  which  aimed  to  popularize  the 
sciences  or  reproduced  the  common  beliefs  of  men 
with  reference  to  nature. 

The  author  has  thought  it  undesirable  to  take 
account  of  medieval  compilations  in  Latin  such 
as  those  of  Neckam,  Albertus  Magnus,  and  Vin- 
cent of  Beauvais,  ill-suited  to  the  general  needs  of 
the  age  owing  to  their  vastness  and  technical 
character.  The  French  adaptors  or  translators  of 
less  involved  writings  such  as  the  Imago  Mundi 
of  Honorius  took  occasion  to  add  to  the  original 
certain  ideas  and  reflections  of  their  own  in  con- 
formity with  those  of  the  French  readers  for 
whom  they  wrote.  It  was  French  versions  of  this 
type  which  gave  nearly  all  classes  of  men,  from 
the  time  of  Saint  Louis  up  to  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, an  opportunity  to  learn  about  the  world. 
On  account  of  these  considerations,  M.  Langlois 
has  chosen  for  his  volume  the  five  principal 
French  encyclopaedias  mentioned  above,  together 
with  the  two  works  of  Philippe  de  Thaon.  The 
work  of  Barthe'lemy  1' Anglais:  De proprietatibus 
rerum,  divided  into  nineteen  books,  although 
translated  into  French  by  Jehan  de  Corbechon 
only  in  1372,  is  included  in  this  volume  on  ac- 
count of  the  prodigious  vogue  it  enjoyed  in  France 
in  the  thirteenth  century.  The  synopsis  in  mod- 
ern French  of  Barthelemy,  given  by  M.  Langlois, 
shows,  as  well  as  any  writing  can,  the  crudity 
and  weirdness  of  medieval  thought  when  com- 
pared with  the  ordinary  every-day  knowledge  in 
modern  times  of  biology,  physics  and  astronomy, 
and,  in  particular,  of  geography.  The  analysis 
of  the  Roman  de  Sidrach  produces  a  similar  effect 
with  its  strangely  confused  notions  about  ethics 
and  theology.  Almost  the  same  thing  might  be 
said  of  the  Livre  du  Tresor,  although  Brunetto  is 
a  more  cautious  writer  and  refrains  from  many  of 
the  absurdities  incident  to  this  class  of  literature. 

Each  chapter  has  a  preface  in  which  M. 
Langlois  gives  especial  evidence  of  the  technical 
erudition  which  characterizes  all  his  work  ;  the 
preface  to  the  Image  du  Monde  treats  of  the  three 
redactions  of  this  famous  work  and  gives  many 
important  data  concerning  authorship  and  other 
problems  of  a  philological  character.  The  discus- 
sion upon  the  nationality  of  Barthe'lemy  and  the 
question  as  to  who  was  the  French  author  of  the 
book  of  Sidrach  are  carefully  outlined,  with  the 
various  opinions  of  authorities  quoted  and  fairly 
considered  so  as  to  give  as  complete  a  treatment 
of  the  problems  as  possible. 

Of  the  six  writers  analyzed   in   the  volume, 


264 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  NOTES. 


[Vol.  xxvi,  No.  8. 


only  two  have  been  made  accessible  to  the  student 
in  modern  editions,  so  that  the  present  work  of 
M.  Langlois  will  hold  its  place  for  some  time  to 
come  as  an  authoritative  book  of  reference  in  this 
field. 

F.  L.  CRITCHLOW. 

Princeton  University. 


CORRESPONDENCE 

THOUGHT  AND  AFTERTHOUGHT  IN  BROWNING'S 
Paracelsus 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — I  have  drawn  attention,  in  your  columns 
and  elsewhere,  to  the  influence  exercised  by  Eliza- 
beth Barrett  upon  Robert  Browning,  especially 
in  the  deepening  and  clarifying  of  his  religious 
convictions.  I  should  like  to  add  to  my  argument 
a  stray  fact,  which  may  be  regarded  by  some  as 
merely  a  curious  coincidence,  but  seems  to  me  of 
greater  significance.  In  Paracelsus,  Book  n,  after 
the  lines  648-9,  spoken  by  Aprile  : 

Yes ;  I  see  now.     God  is  the  PERFECT  POET, 
Who  in  His  person  acts  His  own  creations. 

Browning  added  in  the  edition  of  1849  the  follow- 
ing passage  : 

Shall  Man  refuse  to  be  ought  less  than  God  ? 
Man's  weakness  is  his  glory — for  the  strength 
Which  raises  him  to  heaven  and  near  God's  self 
Came  spite  of  it ;  God's  strength  his  glory  is, 
For  thence  came  with  our  weakness  sympathy 
Which  brought  God  down  to  earth,  a  man  like  us. 

In  the  edition  of  1863,  the  interpolation  was 
suppressed.  The  addition  and  the  omission  are 
alike  noteworthy,  I  think.  I  am  indebted  for  the 
textual  information  to  the  edition  of  Browning' s 
Paracelsus  recently  published  in  London  by  Miss 
Margaret  L.  Lee  and  Miss  Katharine  B.  Locock. 


University  of  Wisconsin. 


J.    W.    CUNLIFFE. 


A  NEGLECTED  KLOPSTOCK-MILTON  PARALLEL 

To  the  Editors  of  Mod.  Lang.  Notes. 

SIRS  : — The  following  parallel  has,  I  believe, 
escaped  the  notice  of  the  commentators  of  Klop- 
stock.  Of  the  angel  Chebar  we  read  (Messias, 
xii,  510  ff.): 

"  Ihrn  sanken  herab,  wie  Schatten,  die  Flugel, 
Ohne  zu  tonen,  and  ohne  zu  dnften  des  ewigen  Friihlings 
Siisse  Geriiche,    nicht  mehr    rait    des  Himmels    Blaue 

bestromet, 
Triefend  nicht  mehr  von  goldenen  Tropfen." 

This  is  clearly  reminiscent  of  the  angel  Raphael' 
of  whom  Milton  sings  : 

"the  pair  [sc.  of  wings]  that  clad 
Each  shoulder  broad  came  mantling  o'er  his  breast 


With  regal  ornament ;  the  middle  pair 
•    .     •         •         •         .         .         .         round 
Skirted  his  loins  and  thighs  with  downy  gold 
And  colors  dipt  in  heaven. 

Like  Maia's  son  he  stood, 

And  shook  his  plumes,  that  heavenly  fragrance  filled 
TUo  „:,.„„;*  ,,,;^«  »      (Paradise  Lost,  V,  278  ff. ) 

C.  H.  IBERSHOFF. 


The  circuit  wide.' 


Harvard  University. 


BRIEF  MENTION 

A  Study  of  Words,  by  E.  M.  Blackburn,  M.  A. 
(Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.,  1911),  is  a  student's 
dictionary  of  English  words,  with  concise  defini- 
tions arranged  in  the  order  of  the  development  of 
meaning  from  the  primary  or  radical  significance, 
which  is  made  clear  by  a  brief  indication  of  the 
etymology.  In  other  words,  it  is  a  concise,  ety- 
mological dictionary,  constructed  with  special 
reference  to  the  clear  apprehension  of  the  exact 
meaning  and  the  approved  use  of  words.  But  it 
is  the  wish  of  the  compiler  to  have  his  book  taken 
to  be  not  a  dictionary  but  a  method  of  studying 
words  deductively,  starting  with  the  derivation 
and  proceeding  thence  through  meanings.  The 
method  is  illustrated  in  the  preface  by  the  series 
of  meanings  carried  by  the  word  pitch.  It  is  not 
well  to  omit  the  etymology  of  a  word  when  it  is 
doubtful,  for  the  conjectured  source  is  usually 
arrived  at  by  specially  careful  study.  In  the 
case  of  pitch,  the  etymology  is,  however,  omitted, 
and  there  is  no  suggestion  of  a  connection  with 
pike  and  peak  (altho  peck  is  referred  to  in  the 
preface,  it  is  not  found  in  the  body  of  the  work). 
It  is  doubtful  whether  this  dictionary  fills  a  want. 
Its  limitations  are  disappointing  :  ' '  Many  com- 
mon words,  and  most  uncommon  ones,  have  been 
omitted,  and  the  rarer  words  of  other  languages 
than  ours  have  been  avoided.  Sometimes  deriva- 
tion without  meaning  is  given,  and  sometimes 
meaning  without  derivation.  In  cases  of  doubtful 
origin,  not  more  than  one  explanation  is  offered, 
and  alternative  possibilities  are  not  discussed." 


No  doubt  will  be  entertained  of  the  usefulness 
of  The  Concise  Oxford  Dictionary  of  Current  Eng- 
lish. Adapted  by  H.  W.  Fowler  and  F.  G. 
Fowler  from  The  Oxford  Dictionary  (Clarendon 
Press,  1911).  This  is  a  marvel  of  condensation, 
accomplished  by  skilful  hands  and  with  the  laud- 
able purpose  of  putting  the  average  man  into 
possession  of  a  large  portion  of  the  extraordinary 
work  of  the  editors  of  the  great  Oxford  Dictionary. 
As  a  dictionary  for  the  school-satchel  this  handy 
volume  far  surpasses  all  others  in  fulness  and 
accuracy. 

L 


PB    Modern  language  notes 
1 

M6 
v.26 


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